Harry Potter and the Gatekeeper's Book
by HarryBond007
Summary: Time Travel. Had seen and worked a lot on time travel but found out that what really was missing is a story about a travel Forward in time... lets see how this works. [ON HOLD]
1. A Step Backwards

**1\. DISCLAIMER. The obvious. I do not own anything. Thanks to Ms Rowling for giving us such wonderful stories. Nothing of what I write is part of HP canon. This story is mostly focused on canon characters but even if a character created by me pops up it would still be set on HP's world, I do not pretend to do anything with those characters besides having some fun writing this.  
**

**2\. Thanks a lot to PeridotPi for the help with this story.**

**3\. Any error here is mine and not from my reviewer. If you spot anything or have a doubt about grammar used or plot just PM me, I'm always swift to answer.**

**4\. Enjoy.**

* * *

James Potter rushed into the living room, followed by two other boys. One of them appeared to be his same age, perhaps a little shorter but with a strong build and a dusky tone on his skin that James lacked. His name was Fred Weasley and he had a dark tone of red all over his hair.

"Come on it has to be Scotland!" Fred said.

James looked impatient, turning to both sides of the room as if he was being watched, but he answered either way. "You're nuts! I would put my money on France before them!"

"France formed a good team this year," said the third boy, who was a few years younger than James but remarkably tall for his age. "Bellard and Phaneuf made a solid defense."

"Well, not that solid, apparently. Ireland crushed them on the quarter finals," replied Fred.

"It's not the defense's fault that they don't have a good seeker," the younger boy insisted, "they couldn't keep holding up forever!"

Fred laughed. "They were lucky to reach the quarter finals, if you ask me. France is not a solid team, Hugo, you should stop listening to Louis. He knows a lot of things but in Quidditch he's clueless."

The young boy, Hugo Weasley, snorted.

James was leading them to the stairs, and said, "It's still better than Scotland, though."

Fred laughed loudly.

"Sorry James, but I'm with Fred on this one. Between Ireland and Scotland, I can't see Ireland winning. Bailey always scores over 100 points just with his own hands," said Hugo as they continued walking upstairs.

"Aww! Not you too, Hugo!" said James. Fred was grinning.

James was a skinny boy who had an impressive way of getting himself and others in trouble. His hair was dark and messy, which was kind of a family trait. He used a pair of round shaped glasses too, which he barely needed but had grown fond of.

Soon, they reached the top floor and ran into the last bedroom of the house.

If it weren't for the beds, one could say that the room was empty. It had an old orange wallpaper and some posters, but apart from that, it was only a room with beds. There was no nightstand, and the wardrobe didn't have anything besides a couple of boxes with old things. It was a room made for occasional sleeping, but it was clear that no one really lived in there.

"Why did you bring us here? Everyone should be at your house by now."

"It will only be a moment, Hugo. I want to get there too. Don't worry, they won't start playing without us," said James as he took off the backpack that he was carrying. They were on holidays so it was a common thing for all the cousins to gather up at one place to play Quidditch and chat. The Potters' house was the biggest and had its own Quidditch field, so it was usually the place to go when they wanted big matches.

They were at their grandparents home at that moment. It was a big house with a lot of floors placed in awkward positions. Everybody called it the Burrow, and it was usual to see people coming in and out of the house at all times, especially on vacations or at eating hours.

Fred and Hugo got closer to their cousin and saw him pulling a weird and thick book out of the backpack. The old book was lined in red leather with runes written over the top. A weird symbol that was supposed to be present in the middle had been worn out by the years.

"A book? Really?" asked Fred, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, shut up, I'm sure you will like it."

"Let me doubt that. When you said that you had something awesome to show us, I thought that you meant a more Quidditch...ish thing... We could be at your house talking about the upcoming game! How often can we see a World Cup final?"

James was really eager for that game too, and he couldn't believe the seats that his father had been able to get. Still, he wasn't going to stop now.

He opened the book. It was filled with weird drawings that were really hard to understand; it was not even written in English, so Hugo and Fred turned to their cousin, trying to ask what were they supposed to be seeing.

"Is that a man or two?" asked Hugo, confused. "Where did you get this?"

"Grimmauld place's library," answered James, looking proud of himself.

"And what were you doing in a library?"

"Very funny, Fred. I was cleaning, of course. Mum wanted us to help Kreacher put the place in order. She wanted to have dinner there after the game. That house elf is very old, you know."

"Why there?"

James shrugged. "Dad says that we need to use the place more often"

Hugo continued checking the book, and Fred did as well. Here and there, they found annotations referring to wand movements and Time Windows - whatever that was. However, it was obvious that they still didn't see what they were looking for.

"And this book is awesome because...?"

James made a hand gesture, like making a bad idea aside, "Look at this!" he said, flipping the pages.

The big book was now opened over the nearest bed, and on the left side of the text, there was a man looking at himself through a flying window. The text was not in English again, but there were more annotations written over the instructions on the next page.

"_To see the past into the future_," Hugo spelled out quietly. "And what does that mean?" he asked, confused - the words really sounded out of place.

"Well, here is a window," James pointed at the drawing. "And based on that phrase, I was thinking that maybe we could see something... something that has already passed," he finished, looking at them with a huge grin.

Hugo looked as if he was really getting a bad feeling from that.

"And how did you found this page among all the other pages and books there?" asked Fred, looking a little more interested.

"It kind of fell, over my head."

Fred chuckled.

In a quick movement, James hit him on the shoulder. "Oy!"

"Focus. Don't you want to use this? We need to do it quick, Grandma could be calling for us any moment now..."

"But what would you want to see? Where you left your socks?"

"Guys," Hugo interrupted, "I'm not sure about this. You know what Mum says about Time and those things..."

"Hugo, Hugo, Hugo," said James, putting an arm over his cousin's shoulder. "We're not going to mess with time, we're not stupid. It's a window, we'll only give a little peck. Besides, there is no problem with us seeing, the real problem would be them seeing us, right?"

"I-I guess..."

"Well, it appears to be interesting enough. What are we seeing, then?" Fred asked.

James turned to Fred with a mischievous look. "In honour of the occasion, I say we try with the World Cup. I'm thinking about the one in Dad's fourth year, I want to see Krum in action!"

Slowly, the interest grew in Fred. On the other hand, Hugo was troubled. James knew that his cousin wanted to see that historic play made by Viktor Krum as much as he did, but he didn't look convinced.

"Are you sure that it is okay for us to do this? I mean... we are not even sure of what that spell does," the younger boy asked.

"Come on, Hugo! It will be fun. We know what it does, it is written here. SEE THE PAST, clear as an Invisibility Cloak," James said, pointing at each word in the book at the time. "See, no alter or change."

"If you say so..."

That was all that James needed.

"So, that's what? Twenty-... five years ago?" asked Fred while James nodded.

He quickly pulled out his wand and proceeded to read the incantations, having some trouble with trying to use the proper movements according to the date he wanted to see. "It's easy, twenty-five years exactly isn't it?" he asked to himself, and continued without waiting for an answer.

It took him a few times to get it right, but he eventually managed to make something appear.

On the wall in front of the boys, a circle of light was drawn, its borders shining like gold. However, the interesting part was not in the borders, because inside the circle they could see a different wall. A weird nightstand with a few Quidditch toys was visible where they knew there was nothing but wall. The wallpaper looked different, too, but it still had most of the same orange patterns. "That doesn't look like a Quidditch game," said Hugo.

James didn't know what had gone wrong.

"I did everything as the book said, twenty-five years. Wait, was the game on the 22th or 24th?" he asked, putting a finger over his face and frowning.

"Hugo?" Fred asked, considering the younger boy knew the answer.

James was thinking that the problem could be more with the place than the time when a few whispers came from the other side of the circle and everybody froze. The circle was also starting to grow slowly.

"Wow! that can't be right," Fred said.

"I think that you gave a day before the game," Hugo said, not sure of himself.

"That doesn't matter, Hugo, look! It's growing!" Fred got his cousin's attention.

"Blimey! Do something!"

At Hugo's voice, James reacted without thinking and threw his backpack at the circle. The circle swallowed it.

"What did you do that for?!" Hugo yelled.

"I don't know, you asked me to do something!"

"Not that!"

"I panicked, alright?"

As James and Hugo continued arguing, Fred caught their attention. "Erm... guys..." He was pointing at the circle, which was now half as tall as the wall.

"James!"

In a rushed attempt, James started reading incantations from the book as Fred tried to help him, moving the pages rapidly. Nothing worked.

"Bloody circle! Why don't you just close?" Fred's voice echoed.

"Merlin, we are going to be in trouble," Hugo said, pale. His blue eyes were very wide. "I'll go get Grandma!"

James moved his glasses a bit because in the rush they almost fell to the floor. "Now what? Now what? Think, James Potter, think," he muttered to himself.

Hugo was just starting to walk towards the door when, in a sudden movement, James picked the book and lifted it over his head.

"Woah, James! What are you...?"

But Fred's words were too late. James had already thrown the entire book into the circle, yelling, "Take that, you stupid..."

The circle closed at once.

The three boys let themselves fall to the floor in complete shock, breathing very fast as they contemplated the plain wall again. It was back to normal.

"... window," James finished with a low voice.

"Why did you do that?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Let's not do it again," Fred added softly.

The other two boys nodded weakly.

"Boys! Where are you?!" their grandmother's voice came from downstairs.

The three boys looked at each other nervously and, without saying another word, stormed out of the bedroom.


	2. A Step Forward

**Thanks again to PeridotPi for the help reviewing this chap.**

* * *

Harry and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories.

Moments before, Harry had arrived at the Burrow to stay with Ron for the rest of the summer. Mr. Weasley had been able to get tickets for the Quidditch World Cup final so Harry and Hermione were going with them. Harry couldn't be more excited.

"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as they climbed. Fred had played a great trick on Dudley at Privet Drive and, before Harry could understand what was happening, Mrs. Weasley had stopped the twins at the living room, arguing loudly.

Ron and Ginny both laughed, although Hermione didn't.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," said Ron quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they'd been inventing all that..."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the noise."

"Only, most of the stuff was a bit dangerous," said Ron, "and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms... She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get as many O.W.L.s as she expected."

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students took at the age of fifteen.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny said, "because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop."

Just then, a door on the second landing opened and a face poked out, wearing horn rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

"Hi, Percy," said Harry.

"Oh, hello Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."

"We're not thundering," said Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've disturbed the top secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."

"What are you working on?" Harry asked.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin."

"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron. "Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink.

"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow bottomed products that seriously endangers-"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he started off upstairs again. Percy slammed his bedroom door shut. As Harry, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees that Fred had given to Dudley.

The room at the top of the house where Ron slept looked much as it had the last time that Harry had come to stay: the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping ceiling. The fish tank on the windowsill which had previously held frog spawn now contained one extremely large frog. Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here no more, but instead there was the tiny gray owl that had delivered Ron's letter to Harry on Privet Drive. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering madly.

"Shut up, Pig," said Ron to the owl, edging his way between two of the four beds that had been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill and Charlie are in their room," he told Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to himself because he's got to _work_."

"Er—why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron.

"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny, "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," said Ron sarcastically. "Ginny named him," he explained to Harry, "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that."

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Harry knew Ron too well to take him seriously. He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers, but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have eaten him.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asked Hermione now.

"Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen any before."

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" said Harry, sitting down on one of the beds and watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling.

"Enjoying it?" repeated Ron darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. '_According to Mr. Crouch… as I was saying to Mr. Crouch… Mr. Crouch is of the opinion… Mr. Crouch was telling me…_' They'll be announcing their engagement any day now."

At that very moment, a whizzing sound came from the farthest wall and, where Ron's nightstand was supposed to be, was now floating a big circle with golden borders. One could see through it, but the nightstand was not on the other side. Instead, the back wall was looking plain and empty, its wallpaper a little older than on the surrounding places.

"Blimey! What the hell is that?"

Harry didn't have a clue of what that was, so he turned to look at Hermione, but the girl was quite confused too.

_"I did everything as the book said, twenty-five years. Wait, was the game on the 22th or 24th?"_ a foreign voice echoed from the circle's direction. Ginny gasped.

"Reckon that this is Fred and George's doing?" Ron asked.

"It doesn't look like it, they are mostly doing - Ron! Stay away from there!" Hermione yelled as the redhead gave a couple of steps towards the wall.

"It can't be that dangerous, Hermione, it's probably a mirror or something," he said, turning to look at the bushy haired girl.

"And why does it talk?" Ginny asked.

Harry didn't know how to explain that, but of course he didn't know nearly as much about Magic as his friends. The weird voices kept coming though, _"I think that you gave a day before the game,_" a different voice echoed this time. All of the sound came in a quiet and distorted form, so they needed to be silent to hear it.

"Maybe we should go downstairs and ask someone about it," Harry suggested.

"Are you mental? With Mum as shirty as she is right now?"

"Well, we have no other option, that thing is growing." Hermione said with a frown.

Harry hadn't realized it before but it was true, the circle was indeed growing and very fast as well. Ron, who was staring at Hermione with his back to the circle, turned to look by himself when something smacked him in the head.

"Ow! Stupid - ruddy - thing!" he complained, picking the object that hit him from the floor. It was a backpack. Apparently, the flying thing showed Ron it was time to change his mind, as he said, "Ok, you're right, Hermione, let's get Dad here! This is freaking me out!"

_"Bloody circle! Why don't you just close!"_ a voice echoed in the room, and everyone turned to look at Ron, but the red haired boy had his mouth closed.

"What? That wasn't me," he said, confused when he noticed the attention.

"I'll keep an eye on this, go get your father, or Bill, or anybody" said Harry.

_"Woah, James! What are you-?" _another voice came from the other side of the whizzing circle, and this time something heavier hit Ron very hard, squarely in the back.

"Ow! Bloody hell!" Now it really was Ron who yelled after the thud, and he fell to the floor.

The circle was not there anymore.

"It's gone," Ginny said.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked as she and Harry rushed to the redhead.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, I even don't know what - Er, guys, look at this," Ron said, standing up and pointing to the huge book which was now resting on the floor. The heavy book was lined in red leather.

Harry looked at it with curiosity, but Hermione was cautious.

"What is this stupid book doing here?" Ron muttered to himself, opening the cover.

"NO, RON! WAIT!" Hermione yelled.

But she was too late. The book was opened heavily to the first pages, but nothing remarkable happened. There was an odd-looking image on the page; a door and what looked to be like a huge animal drawn over it, but Harry didn't pay much attention to the picture.

"See, it's only a dump book, what was supposed to happen?"

Hermione was frowning at Ron. "That book was showing us something from who-knows-where! We don't know what it can do!"

"Was it really the book that opened the circle, you think?" asked Ginny.

Harry shrugged, "I don't think it was the backpack," he said, grabbing it from the floor. It didn't look magical at all and was empty.

Ron snorted. "It has to be the twins' doing," he said, winding a lot of pages at a time as if he was trying to see if the book really did something. Hermione was fuming. "This is just a useless book, Hermione, it's only for reading," Ron said, closing it and throwing it over to the nearest bed.

Then something unexpected happened. The useless book levitated over the four of them, at which Ginny gasped. Some sort of blinding light came out of it, growing very quickly until it covered all of the room. Surprised shouts were heard, but they were soon over, and when the book fell heavily back onto the bed, there was nobody in the room anymore. All that was left was the book.


	3. The Wrong Burrow

**Thanks to PeridotPi for the help putting this chapter in shape.**

* * *

It seemed like a lot of time passed before Harry could distinguish his surroundings. He was feeling numb and queasy, almost as if he had woken up from a very long sleep.

He shook his head, trying to remember what had happened.

Moments before, when Ron threw that book away, a thunderous sound had reached them and he lost track of where he was. Harry couldn't remember much aside from a glistening light covering every bit of space in the room.

He knew the light was gone even before opening his eyes, and the shapes and colours of objects were starting to take form very slowly.

In a careful movement, he stood up. His first thought was that he was still in Ron's room and that somehow he had fallen to the floor. He picked up his glasses, and then saw the empty blue backpack next to him; he hadn't dreamed about it, that backpack had really come from the other side of the wall. From the other side of that circle.

"What the hell was that?!" Ron asked with a loud voice. He had fallen to the floor too, but he was getting on his feet already. Close to him, Hermione and Ginny were standing up too.

"I told you not to touch that book!" Hermione bolted towards him. "But do you ever listen? NO!"

"Hey, how was I supposed to know?"

Hermione snorted loudly shaking her hands in exasperation. "You could have listened to me."

"You didn't know what that was book either!"

"But I told you not to touch it!"

Harry shook his head one more time, still kind of dazzled by the whole thing, and his friends' arguments were not helping. Something caught his attention then; the four beds were there, but even so, something was wrong, something was different.

"Where's the book?" asked Ginny suddenly, and Hermione stopped arguing. The bushy-haired girl turned around and, when she didn't find the red lined book, faced Ron once again.

"See?! How are we going to know what happened now?"

Ron was rubbing his head, having really received a hard blow from the book when it first came, and said, "Wasn't that thing the problem in the first place? Let it go, we're better off without it if you ask me." Hermione was fuming.

"Are we still in your room?" asked Harry before Hermione had a chance to yell back at Ron.

"Of course we are, where else would we be?"

"I don't know, it just looks different."

Everyone moved their eyes around the room and they soon discovered that things were not entirely the same. The beds were in different positions. There was no nightstand or Quidditch toys or even the bunch of posters that were covering the walls just moments before, and the orange wallpaper looked older too. No signs of the school trunks either.

"Where did all of my things go?" Ron asked.

With a sudden fear, Harry moved his hand rapidly to his right pocket. Everything was disappearing and he had to make sure that he still had it... he let out a huge sigh of relief when he felt his phoenix feather wand there. He turned around and saw everyone checking for the same thing too.

"Maybe somebody picked your things up, to put them somewhere else," Ginny said.

"Yeah right, Ginny, and left us here sleeping on floor," said Ron with the best sarcastic voice he had. Of course, he earned a glare from his sister.

"Are you absolutely positive that this is your room, Ron?" asked Hermione, who didn't sound angry anymore. Instead, Harry thought, she was quite worried.

Ron moved around the walls and looked out of the window carefully, and it took him a while to answer. "It is, I think so, a lot of things have changed but it is still my room."

"Maybe we should head downstairs, I can't hear your mother anymore," said Harry, and everyone nodded.

He took the backpack with him, it was the only thing around and it maybe was Fred's or George's. Harry was not really convinced that this was one of their pranks though; it didn't feel like it.

As they walked down the stories of the Burrow, Harry kept thinking that they were not where they were supposed to be. The house felt empty and way too silent. There was no sign of Percy either; they passed in front of his room, making a lot of noise, and Ron even knocked to check. Harry started to get worried himself. He hoped Ron's parents could explain what was going on.

Once at the first floor, Ginny saw the door to her bedroom ajar, and she couldn't keep herself from taking a peek inside. The redhead girl gasped.

"What?" Ron asked.

"There are four beds inside," Ginny said, and Hermione, surprised by her words, got closer to take a look.

"Rubbish, it's only Hermione and you in there. Why would you need four beds?"

"We didn't have four beds this morning, I don't know what happened here," Ginny said, opening the door a little more to let everyone see. "It's empty."

Harry understood what she meant right away. He didn't know Ginny's room, but somehow it was clear to him that something was missing. There were indeed four beds, but as in Ron's room, the place seemed to be lacking other kinds of things. A Holyhead Harpies' poster was placed on the other side of the room, featuring a gorgeous redhead woman in the front, but aside from it, the walls were empty too.

It was as if both rooms had been used only occasionally for a very long time. It didn't make sense.

"Who's that?" Ginny asked, looking at the poster from the distance. "I don't remember her from the team."

"How are we supposed to know? It's your poster," Ron said.

"It's not, mine is different." Ginny took a slightly pink color.

Some sounds reached them from the ground level, laughs and mumbling. Everybody exchanged weird looks, after Mrs. Weasley's argument with the twins, laughs were what Harry least expected.

"We should go see your mother, she should know something," Hermione said.

Ron looked unsettled. "All right, this is getting kind of weird."

In slow movements, they started walking down the stairs, nervous so they went one step at the time. When they were only a few steps away, Hermione placed a hand on Harry's chest, stopping him from walking further. Everyone remained still.

"Listen," she whispered.

The voices came from the kitchen, but they were talking loud enough. Still, the only one Harry recognized was Mrs. Weasley's, "... and where's that book now?" she asked.

"...told you... threw it in the circle!" another voice replied, a boy.

"You shouldn't have taken it in the first place!" a girl scolded.

"Oh shut up, Rose!"

"Silence, both of you." Mrs. Weasley's voice echoed. "A red book, you say? And are you completely sure it disappeared?"

Everyone by the stairs exchanged weird looks.

"That circle swallowed it! It's gone."

"This doesn't sound right, and you shouldn't be playing with stuff like that!" Mrs. Weasley insisted. "Now tell me more about this circle."

The voices lowered, so Harry turned to look at his friends. Ron and Ginny were looking at the living room, stunned by something they just saw.

"What the hell is wrong with this place?" Ron muttered.

Harry turned to the living room too but, aside from a lot of portraits at the other side of the room, he didn't find anything odd. All of the living room appeared be exactly as they had left it moments earlier.

"What?"

"Th-The clock," Ginny answered, dumbfounded.

Once he set his green eyes there, Harry understood what they meant. The Weasley family clock was a weird artifact which had names of places instead of hours, and also had a hand for each member of the family which let Mrs. Weasley know where everyone was at any given moment. This time though, Harry couldn't see a thing because the clock had an insane amount of hands, making it extremely difficult to read.

Harry turned to look at Hermione, but the bushy haired girl only shrugged, even she didn't have an idea of what was happening.

Ron walked towards the clock while everyone else remained near the stairway.

"Blimey!" he said halfway there, looking at the clock.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked.

"These names, I don't know them!" the redhead said. "I mean, who's this Victoire girl?"

"Maybe a cousin."

"Rubbish! I know all of my family tree, there's no Victoire there, neither a Hugo," Ron said. "Some of them are here," he finished with a doubtful voice.

"Here?" Ginny asked.

"Here! In the Burrow!"

Suddenly the voices from the kitchen stopped completely, and Harry knew Ron had been too loud. Mrs. Weasley spoke then, making her voice loud enough to reach the living room, "Ginny, dear, is that you?" she asked. "The kids are just grabbing a quick snack."

Confused stares were sent between them, especially focusing on Ginny, who had a disconcerted look. Harry hoped Mrs. Weasley could help them understand what was going on, but he didn't know what she meant. Who were those kids that she was talking about?

"Err... yes Mum, we're all here," Ginny answered weakly.

Mrs. Weasley's steps echoed all the way to the living room, "Who is here...?" she started, but when she saw them her mouth fell open and the plate she was holding crashed against the floor.

"Who... Ginny? Ron?" she asked, completely pale, moving her eyes between Ron and everyone else at the stairway.

A boy not much older than Harry came rushing then. He looked almost exactly like the pictures Harry had from his father, which really grabbed his attention. "Mum, it was an accident, I was just..." he asked in a hurry, but as soon as the boy noticed that the people in the living room, his expression changed. "Woah, Dad? What happened to you? Wait, is that my backpack?"

The boy was looking directly at Harry, who was so shocked that he couldn't find anything to say. He turned to look at his sides, but Hermione and Ginny appeared to be equally lost.

More people arrived, kids around their age or even younger. The last one was a girl, if she didn't had a bright tone of red all over her hair and light blue eyes Harry would have thought he was seeing Hermione again. "What's going on?" the girl asked, but when she saw them she let out a gasp.

"What is happening? The rooms are empty," Ron said, he moved his blue eyes to the kids around his mother. "Who are they? Where's Dad, and Bill, and Charlie, and everyone else?"

"Wicked," said a boy with a slightly darker skin. "Is this because of the book?"

"Wh-Who... How did you get... here?" Mrs. Weasley asked, her eyes still quite big.

"We were in Ron's room, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione started. "A circle threw us a book, it might had been a portal or something."

Harry, Ron, and Ginny nodded.

"Ron tossed the book aside and then a shining light came," she continued, frowning at the redhead. "It faded out, but now some things have changed."

Ron started arguing about the things in his room that he couldn't find. The conversation became noisy and crowded with questions, and even the mysterious kids started talking, especially the first boy who insisted the blue backpack was his. Harry gave it to him without saying a word.

Mrs. Weasley looked disturbed, and after a while, she decided to stop all voices.

"Listen to me," she said, breathing heavily, turning to Harry and his friends. "The four of you, go to Ron's room and stay there until I tell you so."

"But what about breakfast?" Ron asked.

"Do as I say," she insisted. Harry knew by the tone of her voice that there was no point in arguing.

They went back to the fifth floor room in low spirits, more confused now than when they first walked down those stairs.

"Who were they?" Harry asked. Everyone was sitting down on the beds, except Ron, who had let himself fall apart entirely in the one he thought was his.

"I dunno, neighbors?"

"I don't know them," said Ginny.

"Err... new neighbors?"

"I don't know Ron, do you think that they could be the ones mentioned on the clock?" Harry said.

Ron raised his head a little from the mattress to look at them, "Of course not, I would know them..."

"Maybe you haven't seen them since they were very young," Hermione insisted. "Far relatives."

"But I would have..."

"What if they're not Weasleys? Maybe they're far relatives from your mother's side? Prewetts? That would explain things."

The redhead frowned, thinking about it, considering it. However, he soon dismissed the idea with a hand gesture. "We know our family, even Mum's side. Right, Ginny?"

Ginny looked weirdly at her brother, but she nodded either way.

"Ok, we're back to nothing," said Harry.

"That girl looked exactly like Hermione," Ginny said after a moment, looking at her friend. Hermione seemed to be thinking deeply about it.

"I-I- don't know. I thought that too... surely a coincidence."

"Do you reckon all of this could be Fred and George's doing? They want to scare us or something," Ron said, leaning on his bed.

Harry wanted to believe Ron, but this whole thing was way too weird for them. It was not that the twins didn't have weird ideas, but this was awkward and not really their kind of thing.

At some point, they heard different voices and steps downstairs. Harry thought those might be Mr. Weasley or Ron's brothers, but he still didn't know why they were keeping them in Ron's room like that. Everybody was nervous.

An hour later, Mrs. Weasley came back to see them, she was more calm; however, she looked upset or something like it too. The old woman apologized for delaying breakfast so much, and asked them to meet her at the table. She was acting weirder than before, when they asked for an explanation she only said something complicated had happened, but that they were already looking at it.

On their way down, they noticed that Ginny's bedroom door was now closed. There were no portraits on the living room either, and the family clock appeared to be missing too. It was really suspicious.

Breakfast was odd. Mrs. Weasley mostly limited herself to give them food, but she also asked about them too. She was the same kind woman, but Harry knew that something worried her; by the looks she was giving to them, it was not hard to think that it was about them. It was as if they were sick or something.

She also asked a lot of questions, mostly about the incident with the floating circle, but some really absurd too. Mrs. Weasley made questions about things she was supposed to know already. Of course, a few eyebrows were raised when she even asked for the date.

Soon, they were send back at Ron's room, and oddly enough they were told not to leave it. Ron complained about wanting to play Quidditch, but his mother didn't yield.

"What's wrong with Mum?" Ginny asked after a while of being in Ron's room.

"Did you notice her too?" Hermione asked. "She changed."

"She changed? What do you mean?" Ron seemed confused. "She's acting weird, I won't deny that, but..."

"She's older." Ginny said.

Harry had noticed it too. Mrs. Weasley had a few gray hairs that weren't there when he first saw her in the morning, and a few wrinkles spread across her face too.

"Older? I don't..."

"The whole house is different," interrupted Ginny. "What if we're not in the Burrow anymore? Maybe we made some weird mistake and we ended up in someone else's house, one that looks just like ours..."

Sadly that was the best idea they had so far, but it still was way too far-fetched. Mrs. Weasley clearly recognized them and, even with all the differences, Harry knew it was her.

Harry wished he could write to Sirius, even if it was only to say hello, but Hedwig was not around. He was worried, as his entire trunk was missing - everyone's trunks were missing actually.

Silence soon took over, and Ron started to get desperate. "We were supposed to be talking about the World Cup? Where the hell is everybody?" he said and was lightly scolded by Hermione for using that language.

"They should be here soon."

"They must be, I don't want to lose that game! When I will ever be able to see one final again?"

After a moment, Harry looked at Hermione, who was staring outside the window. "What do you think is happening, Hermione?" he asked her.

The girl frowned. "This is all very unusual, I don't know. I have some wild theories but each one as unlikely as the previous one. The one that explains most things is the least probable, and the most dangerous," she said seriously.

"What is it?" Ron asked.

Hermione turned to look at Ginny, who looked at them curiously. "It's probably nothing." It was clear she didn't want to talk about it in front of the redhead girl. Ginny noticed it too, and looked at them, wondering what they were hiding from her.

Mrs. Weasley came back some time after that. She brought a Wizarding Chess board and a game of Exploding Snaps, which only meant that they were going to stay there longer. She also opened Ron's wardrobe, weirdly enough there were no clothes in there, but still she grabbed a box and took it with her.

"Hey, that's my Chocolate Frog Card collection, it looks bigger than I remember," Ron said, standing up to see it. However, his mother didn't let him take one single card.

"Those are mine."

"Well, your father needs to check something on them, we'll return it soon, don't worry." Mrs. Weasley said as she left, leaving everybody with a few more questions to wonder about.

"If I had known, I would have opened that wardrobe hours ago!" Ron snorted.

More voices and visitors came and left, but Harry never found out who they were. Soon it started getting dark outside Ron's window, and Harry realized that everyone was nervous.

"Oh come on! Where are they? They haven't said anything about the game yet! It's supposed to be tomorrow!"

"I think that there is something bigger going on," Hermione said.

Ron snorted. "Bigger than the Quidditch World Cup finals? You're mental!"

Hermione frowned.

"Err... Ron, I think Hermione has a point. I'm getting a bad feeling out of this. Why are they even locking us up here?" Harry asked.

They exchanged some worried looks, Harry saw Ron's sister looking slightly scared.

"Why don't we get this over with already? Let's go down there and ask them directly," Ron said, and everyone ended up agreeing with him.

The new journey downstairs was much sneakier. They tried not to make a single sound because they didn't want to be caught. Harry didn't like the idea of snooping around, but by then he was desperate to know what was really going on. Did it have to do with him arriving at the Burrow? Or with that shifty circle? Or the mysterious kids?

"... are you sure that is the only way?" the unmistakable voice of Mr. Weasley echoed.

"They're too young, they won't understand," Mrs. Weasley added.

"Trust me, they will," a third voice, which Harry found somewhat familiar, said. It was a man's voice. "They went through the third year already, Hermione will perfectly... Wait..." He stopped.

"What's wrong?"

"They are here, on the stairs," said the man.

Ginny gasped, and everybody turned to look at each other with frightening expressions, but before they could decide what to do, more words reached them.

"They have been hearing us?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"Not much, I believe. I doesn't matter, though, we have to explain everything either way," the man said.

Harry had a weird sensation, it was as if he was on that nightmare again, and Voldemort was asking for the old man who was peeking through the house. Unconsciously he rubbed his scar, causing Hermione to give him a weird look.

"I'll leave while you talk to them, I don't want to kill them with a shock. Call me when they're ready," the man said, and the fireplace echoed.

"We-We probably should be..." Ron started, everybody began turning backwards.

"Wait," Ron's father said, and soon he was standing and the base of the stairs, looking at them from below. Harry also thought he seemed older. Ron's father surely had less hair than when he picked him up from Privet Drive that morning.

"We didn't mean to hear anything, we were just..."

"It doesn't matter," Mr. Weasley said, releasing a heavy sigh. "Come on down, we need to talk."


	4. A Step In An Impossible Direction

**Thanks again to PeridotPi for the help checking this chap.**

* * *

Mr. Weasley led them to the living room, and asked them to take a seat. Only Mrs. Weasley was there, which meant that the mysterious man who Harry had heard moments before was indeed gone, at least for the time being.

Who was he? Harry was sure his voice sounded familiar in some way, but he couldn't put his finger on why. What was he talking about with Ron's parents? Did it have something to do with them being locked down the entire day?

Mr. Weasley had taken a seat too, and was exchanging worried looks with his wife. They were not the only ones; Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny were nervous, and still didn't know what was happening or where the rest of the Weasleys were.

Now that Harry looked at Ron's parents carefully, it was striking how much older they appeared. How could they age so much from one moment to another?

"So, what's going on?" Ron was the one to break the uncomfortable silence. "Why did you keep us in my room the entire day? We're still going to the World Cup, right?"

"Where's Bill... and everybody else?" Ginny added.

Mr. Weasley sighed heavily, looking as if he didn't know where to start. "This is a very delicate situation, but before I explain I need to know your version," he said. "I want you to tell me everything that happened today, from the moment you woke up until Molly sent you to Ron's room. It doesn't matter if we were there, I want to hear it from you."

The four of them looked at each other with worried faces; it appeared as if something really complicated was going on, which probably had something to do with that floating circle and the book. They nodded seriously and started their story.

"I see," said Ron's father, once everyone had finished talking.

"Is this about that circle? What was it?" Hermione asked.

Mr. Weasley nodded. "We are still unsure, but people are looking into it right now. It's the first time we've heard about it. It's some type of portal."

"A portal? To where?" Harry asked, confused and looking at Ron, who shrugged.

"To here."

They frowned and exchanged some looks. "To here? But we were already here," Ron added.

"It appears that this portal is not about the _where_, but the _when_."

Silence fell upon them, but it was shortly disrupted by a low gasp; when Harry moved his head, he saw Hermione with her hands over her mouth. Harry was probably thinking the same thing as her, time and Time-Turners. Could it be possible that this portal had worked like one? His green eyes were wide open in interest.

Ginny looked confused. "_When_? I don't get it."

"In simple words, when that circle reacted, you were thrown into a different time; you time travelled," Mr. Weasley explained seriously, waiting for a reaction, and receiving shocked expressions all around.

"That's... but how? I mean wher- when are we?" Hermione asked, moving her eyes impatiently between Harry and Ron.

"Twenty five years into the future, your future."

"That's not possible!" Hermione said quickly, "You cannot travel to the future! I have read all about it. You can have glimpses, prophecies, but not physically travel. Time travel can only be accomplished to the past, and only a few hours back this is... this is..." The girl was breathing pretty fast.

"Calm down dear, everything will be ok." Mrs. Weasley, who had remained silent until now, reassured.

Harry didn't know if he was dreaming. Of course it was the first time he heard about time theory, but he thought Hermione was pretty sure of what she was saying. Even so, Ron's parents looking older and the whole Burrow being kind of different was explained by the possibility of time travel. Was it real?

"Please, Hermione, calm down. We already heard about that a few hours ago," said Mr. Weasley. "We had been having meetings to solve this and send you back to your time, but it looks like we are clueless right now. The only certain thing is that you indeed travelled to the future. It might be impossible in time theory, but you are here. It was done."

"The hands on the clock? The kids?" Hermione barely found her voice.

Ron's parents sighed. "Our grand-kids."

A few eyes went wide. "WHAT! You have grand-kids? But... how? I mean...!" Ron yelled.

"It would be best if we don't talk about that just yet, son, not until we are sure how we are going to proceed with you."

Harry was shocked. Those kids they had seen in the morning were Ron's... nephews? nieces?... sons? The idea felt utterly strange, but he knew that if they had indeed travelled twenty five years into the future, then it was quite possible.

Hermione seemed willing to raise her voice, but she was restraining herself. "You need to send us back. It's bad for us to be here! We can't!"

"We know that, dear, but there's nothing we can do for now," said Mrs. Weasley. "Sorry for leaving you in Ron's room this entire time, but we thought we could solve this before you even found out, and we couldn't. We don't know how much longer it will take."

The bushy haired girl seemed to pale at Mrs. Weasley's worried words.

"Can we help with something?" Harry asked.

"Maybe you can. We need to know more about this book; that information could help the people who are trying to send you back."

"The man who was here? Who was he? Why did he leave?"

Ron's parents exchanged a weird look, and then Mr. Weasley nodded. "Yes we brought him here as soon as Molly saw you, he and other people have been coming in and out of the house during the day. We tried to keep Silencing charms over the stairway or at least a Detection charm to know when you were hearing." He sighed heavily, then stated, "He'll be back very soon, and he'll explain things better."

"Who is he?" Ron asked.

"Harry" was the only answer Mr. Weasley gave them.

For a few seconds Harry couldn't understand him, but when he did he was completely confused. Mr. Weasley was surely talking about a person with the same name as him.

"Harry?!" Hermione yelled.

"Harry who? Harry's here," Ron said.

"I was talking about the Harry from this time," Mr. Weasley said, turning to look at Harry. "Your older version."

Shock was an unfitting word to express how Harry felt at that moment. It was of course natural that a twenty-five-years-older version of himself existed, but he hadn't thought about it, not until now. His jaw dropped. How old was he? Thirty-nine? Forty? It was absurd even imagining himself in that way, and even more thinking that that version of himself was going to come in a few moments.

Ron and Ginny were looking at him as if he was a totally different person, but Hermione turned to Mr. Weasley instead. "He can't come here! He is not supposed to see his other self!"

"Maybe not Hermione, but he would eventually. Besides, they both know the other Harry exist, and we need him to help us here," Mr. Weasley added.

"But… but it's wrong! That's one of the most important rules of time travel!"

"There's nothing else we can do, we do need the help from Harry and others if we want to send you back."

Hermione seemed willing to keep arguing, but she couldn't find the words. Mr. Weasley walked towards the fireplace and Harry froze, suddenly terrified.

"We already told them, you can come now." Mr. Weasley's voice echoed in the living room as he spoke through the Floo connection.

Harry was hoping for a few moments to assimilate what was going to happen, but he got almost no time. As soon as Mr. Weasley turned to them, the sound of the green fire on the fireplace erupted, and a man walked out to stand next to Mr. Weasley. He was shaking the ashes out of his brown trousers.

"Hi," he said with a smile, and everyone seemed to be paralyzed as they looked at him.

He was not a tall man, but he was not short either; he also had messy black hair and round-shaped glasses. As soon as Harry saw his face, he was convinced that all the time travel theory was true. The older Harry looked as if he was in his thirties, and his face was still pretty recognizable - he even had a faded lightning bolt scar on his forehead.

"I remembered you being taller," he said to Ron, who was mumbling things that weren't understandable. The redhead kept moving his blue eyes uncontrollably between Harry and the older version of him, stunned.

The older Harry then turned to Mr. Weasley. "Maybe we should have given them more time, Arthur."

Soon they were seated again, but Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny hadn't said a word. They hadn't even taken their eyes away from the man who was now smiling at them.

"Well, I guess you all know we are in 2019, right?" older Harry started, but the only answer he got were a couple of slow nods.

"Perfect," older Harry said. "Now that we can talk freely we can have the two versions."

"T-Two?"

Older Harry nodded. "We already heard the story from James, my son," he said, frowning as gasps were heard. Ron, Hermione and Ginny turned to Harry quite surprised, Harry was completely shocked. James made sense as a name for his son, even so, the whole idea was overwhelming.

"Well, this is somehow his fault," older Harry continued. "He was the one who cast that circle, accidentally of course, but that won't keep him from being grounded for a while. You might remember him, he had a blue backpack."

Harry of course remembered the boy, and for a moment wished he had known he was his son then. He remembered noticing that he looked a bit like him then. "J-James?" he asked.

"Yes, quite a problem sometimes but he is a good boy, deep down."

"Oh," Harry answered, Hermione gave him a weak smile. On the other side of the couch, Ron was smirking and Ginny was just looking at him with an unreadable expression.

Harry realized that this was a good thing - he had a family at last, he was going to have a lot of people around him. For a brief moment, he even wondered about James' mother, and blushed when he dreamed of Cho.

Mr. Weasley explained to the man all that he had been told about the other side of the story with Hermione filling the gaps. She seemed to be the most comfortable speaking to the older version of her friend. However, even after the story was finished, older Harry still said that they were in the dark. They didn't know anything about that book or the portal.

"Err... H-Harry?" Hermione asked the man.

"Yes, Hermione?" he answered with a smile.

"I don't know if it's important, but I saw something on one of the first pages of the book; a symbol and some runes," she said.

The man looked suddenly interested. "Can you draw it?" he asked, and Hermione nodded.

Moments later they were all looking at a picture of a weird door with a bear in front of it. Harry remembered seeing it before, but if he had been asked to draw it he would have done a much worse job, as he hadn't paid much attention then. There were some runes around the door in the picture, but Harry couldn't understand even one of them.

"Fascinating."

"Well, if you see here," Hermione added, pointing at a special rune, "this one means..."

"Cycle, yes," the black-haired man answered. Harry was surprised at finding out that he would learn something about runes eventually.

Hermione nodded with a wide smile, then her smile faded, "Don't know these ones though, they look very ancient. There were more, but I can't remember them all."

"I think I'm on the same place as you with these ones,"

Ron, Ginny and Harry were a few feet away from where Hermione and Harry's older self were checking the drawing, and Ron took that chance to whisper in Harry's ear, "Didn't know you knew runes."

"Neither did I," Harry answered.

After a while, everyone returned to their seats in the living room, and Mrs. Weasley turned to older Harry. "Is it of any help, dear?" she asked hopefully.

"I hope, I'll need to check with a few people though, someone must know this symbol, it looks like a family crest or something..." he said, looking at a particular shape on the drawing.

"Can we help?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"I'm afraid even I am not of much use with this, it's not my field," older Harry answered. "Hermione should be here any moment now, she'll know what to do."

Hermione's eyes expanded as everyone turned to look at her. "ME!?"

"Well yeah, you might not know these runes now, but maybe your older self does. She has a lot of contacts who might know something as well. She came around a couple of times today while you were upstairs; she said she would be getting around this hour after we had told you everything."

A pale colour was covering Hermione's face and Harry couldn't suppress a smile. He knew what his friend was going through, of course. Ron and Ginny were looking at each other, surely wondering if they would get to see their older selves too.

As mentioned, the fireplace burst into green flames a few minutes later, and a woman came rushing out of it. Harry couldn't see her face at first, but as soon as she was out of the fireplace, the woman pulled something out of her hair and it expanded, turning bushy and long. Harry knew then for sure that the woman was the older self of his friend.

Even before looking at them, the older Hermione threw her high heels aside, flicked her wand, and the next moment walked towards them on blue slippers.

"Merlin! Those were killing me. Are they still up in Ron's...?" she started, but at that point she raised her head and looked at four young people staring at her as if they were stunned. "Oh, hey," she said, smiling.

The woman turned to the older version of Harry, who was smiling too. "Do they know?"

Older Harry nodded, "Look, it was on the first pages of the book," he said, passing her the piece of paper with the drawing.

The woman walked from one side of the living room to the other, looking very interested "..._Cycle_... Is that _Fate_? Or... maybe an ancient version of _Gate_... or…" she mumbled.

"Do you know what it is, dear?"

At first older Hermione was startled by the question since she was very focused on the paper. "Ermmm… no, Molly. Sorry, but I do know a few places where to start looking," she answered.

"You called her by her first name," Harry heard Ginny whisper to Hermione, who was blushing.

"Well, I can check this tomorrow, the Ministry must be deserted by now," the woman said, and then moved her eyes to the younger audience. "How are you doing? Everything okay?"

Harry, Hermione and Ginny nodded, however, Ron spoke without looking at her, "Erm... a bit hungry... ma'am?"

At that, Hermione rolled her eyes, her cheeks tinted a light shade of red, while Harry and Ginny smirked. Even so, older Harry seemed to be the one who was trying to contain the biggest laugh. The older Hermione was taken aback, she smiled after a while though.

"Maybe we should all head to the kitchen," Mrs. Weasley said. "You can tell everything to Hermione there."

"It looks like the best idea, dear," added Mr. Weasley, and they all went to eat some food.

The general mood was much more relaxed then, as they even got used to their older selves quite soon. Hermione was worried about the whole situation, but she was soon calmed down by her older self. Apparently, older Hermione had checked and she was confident that things were not that disastrous. The woman insisted that even though she also thought travel to the future was impossible, it was far less dangerous, especially since there was no way to change their future with past information.

"But what about our future?" Hermione asked, still not convinced. "It can change just by what we have seen so far."

"You should know that is easier to handle," her older self answered her. "Of course we will erase your memories before sending you back, we already know at which point the travel took place."

Hermione didn't have a lot of arguments after that.

Harry could say that the conversation at dinner was even joyful. Of course, the future people avoided any information that was not necessary for them, they were cautious even when they knew that they were going to erase their memories, since they thought that the younger ones had had enough surprises for one day.

They talked more about things of the past and the Quidditch World Cup; it appeared as if the finals were going to be in England again in a few days, which was the reason why James specifically picked 1994. Apparently, the boy was so excited about the upcoming match that he wanted to see a final he had heard a lot about already. It was never his intention to alter time, but he did sound like a prankster to Harry. It was as if the boy was Harry's father all over again, even in name.

"Tomorrow is going to be an important day," older Harry said suddenly after they finished eating. "We are going to take you to the Ministry."

A few jaws dropped. "But... why?"

"Some of the people with whom I am going to check that drawing work there," older Hermione said, then added, "the Ministry was going to find out either way, we thought the best thing to do was to let them know so they could help us."

"You work there?" Harry asked.

Harry's and Hermione's future selves both nodded. "Don't worry, we know a lot of people, even the Minister in person. They won't blame you or anything, they just want to know what's going on and how to help. It is in everyone's best interest to keep your timeline as good as this one."

"Our timeline? You mean we are not on the same timeline?" Hermione asked.

"I believe not," her older self answered, looking quite thrilled. "You see, travelling to the future is a complex idea, not even considered until now. The main problem with it is that the future does not exist until you live through it, making it theoretically impossible to move forward in time. The only explanation we have so far is-"

"... different timelines!" Hermione rushed to finish the sentence, her eyes wide open. "Oh, it does make sense. With multiple timelines there is no violation of the time theory principles. We travelled to the future of your timeline, not ours."

Older Hermione smiled at her. "Exactly!" she exclaimed. "I think your timeline hasn't gone through this time yet, it is possible that it will continue its own way once we send you back. It shouldn't be hard to make it exactly as this one if we erase your memories and send you there soon."

Everyone nodded in agreement, even Ron, who didn't seem like he could see the difference between one or two timelines.

"H-Hermione?" the woman asked.

"Y-Y-Yes?" the girl answered.

Ron moved closer to Harry and whispered in a low voice, "This is going to be too bloody confusing."

Older Hermione didn't appear to hear him, "After our meeting at the Ministry I'll need you to join me at a Pensieve. I don't want to get those runes wrong."

The woman then explained to them what a Pensieve was and Hermione agreed, blushing to her ears.

Dinner was soon over and everyone stood up.

"Tonight it would be better for all of you to stay here, but we must ask you not to look for any information about the future around this house," said older Harry, and everyone nodded.

"Brought you some clothes in the afternoon, just in case, hope they fit."

"Clothes? We don't have clothes here?" Ron asked.

"Ron, it has been twenty five years, you really don't expect your mother to keep all of that," older Harry said with a smile. "You won't have a problem, Molly has a lot of grand-kids now so we had a lot of sizes to pick from. Either way, the clothes can Transfigured if they don't fit or something."

"That won't be a problem," Mrs. Weasley said with a smile.

"Well, in that case, we should be going; it's quite late and people are waiting for us, probably with another dinner," older Harry said as he walked towards the fireplace, followed by Hermione.

"Good-bye."

"Bye."

"See you all tomorrow, we'll pick you up around 8:00 am. Be ready," ordered older Hermione and they all agreed.

Once they had left, everyone exchanged some looks. It had been weird, but not that bad, and Harry was sure that their older selves would help them. He was very surprised, of course, as the black-haired man seemed to talk with a lot more self-confidence than Harry had at the moment. He smiled.

"That was weird," Ginny said and they all laughed.

Soon they headed to bed, and as they were told, the clothes fit perfectly. Harry wondered if the ones he got were James's clothes. He wished for a chance to know his future family. He never had had one, so it would be nice seeing them, even if he wouldn't be able to remember them later, back in his own timeline. This was the last thought in Harry's head before he fell asleep.


	5. The Potters

**Thanks once again to PeridotPi for the help betaing this chap.**

**WARNING: As some people may have noticed, I'm reworking a few details from this story. I have only changed up to here, so the next 2 chaps might contradict a few things written in this one. This is mainly because of recent info revealed by JKR about the story after book 7. As I went through this I wanted to stick to cannon so I made those changes, should update the rest of the chaps soon enough. Enjoy :D**

* * *

It was weird waking up in the Burrow and finding Ron's room so different. At first, Harry wondered what had happened there, but everything became clearer once he remembered the events from the day before.

Harry smiled slightly. The boy was going to have a family in the future; it wouldn't be just him anymore. The thought made him step out of bed in a good mood. If he was lucky enough he would find out more about his family or even see them for a moment today.

On the down side, the idea of the Ministry meeting made him uncomfortable. He trusted in his older self, and if he said that everything would fine, then Harry would believe that; however, he didn't know how things worked in the Ministry in this time period and was not very fond of Cornelius Fudge. Harry wondered if the man was still the Minister of Magic.

With a low sigh Harry walked to one of the other beds, where Ron was still sleeping. Naturally it was hard to wake his friend up, but their older selves had said that they would be there at 8:00 am so he needed to do it. It was a lot easier once Mrs. Weasley started yelling from downstairs.

Soon they were at the table eating breakfast with the girls. Both Ginny and Ron looked a little sleepy. During the meal, Harry kept throwing glimpses at Mrs. Weasley; the red-haired woman was pretty much the same, and moved around as if the Burrow was still packed with people.

Harry saw once again that wizards and witches really aged more slowly, not only Ron's parents looked around twenty years younger, but (as he remembered) Hermione and his older self appeared to be in their early thirties. Definitely not as close to forty as they really were.

"Do you reckon we might see some other people from the future?" Ron said as they walked to the living room to wait for older-Harry and Hermione. "I mean, people we know."

"You mean, like us?" Ginny asked, sounding a little scared.

"We might, but I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Oh, come on Hermione, even your older self is not that worried. They'll just erase our memories and send us back to the same place, nothing bad is going happen," replied Ron.

"Still, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, you know? Even with the same knowledge we might react differently. Time is unpredictable."

Ron snorted. "They're already looking at those things; I say there's nothing to worry about. Don't you trust your older self?"

It appeared as if Hermione looked troubled. "Yes, of course, it's just that-"

"I'm with Ron on this one, Hermione," Harry said. "If they are going to _Obliviate_ us either way I would like to meet... you know... more people."

Hermione frowned, but when Ginny agreed too, she didn't have any other option than to let it go.

"Do you think we have kids too? I wonder if we are all married." Ron said.

"Harry and I are married," Hermione said calmly.

As soon as she said that Harry was stunned in his place. The boy had been thinking he had a wife - after all, he had seen his son already - however, he never considered Hermione as an option, she was like a sister to him - it would be weird. Harry turned around and saw Ron looking confused, mumbling things; nearby, Ginny's jaw had dropped and she was staring at Hermione with wide eyes.

"Wh-wha... you what?" Ron asked.

"We're married, didn't you see our hands last night? Our older selves' hands?" the girl asked. "We had wedding bands."

No one tried to say anything, which surprised Hermione, who couldn't find what was weird about what she just said. Then, she saw the red covering Harry's face and her eyebrows raised at once, and she blushed too.

"No, it's not - not we..." she was muttering as she looked at Harry, then she turned quickly to Ginny, "It's not like that... I don't think so. The bands had completely different styles, I mean... we are married but to other people," she said, blushing.

Everybody relaxed and Harry thought he heard Ginny sigh.

The fireplace soon burst into green flames and the older versions of Harry and Hermione appeared before them, smiling. "Hey, had a good night's rest?" asked older-Harry, and they all nodded. "Good, let's go then."

"Wait, Harry, did you two have breakfast already?" asked Mrs. Weasley, coming from the kitchen.

"Of course, they wouldn't have let me out of the house otherwise," older-Harry answered, turning to older-Hermione. "Did you?"

"Yes, I ate something before leaving the house, thanks either way Molly."

Mrs. Weasley smiled. "Ok then, you come and let us know whatever happens."

Older-Harry nodded and moved his green eyes towards the younger people. "Now, we are travelling by Floo directly to the Minister's office. I arranged a connection to avoid answering questions and people looking at you. Shall we?"

Moments later they all came out of a large fireplace in a wide room. The Minister of Magic's office was a weird mix between a formal business place and Albus Dumbledore's office; a set of silvery unknown things were scattered through the room, but there were not that many, and they were better organized. There were also fewer bookcases. The walls were made of dark green bricks, but they were not plain; a few portraits with moving people were spread across all of the walls of the room. The big desk had a lot of papers and a few books, neatly ordered; behind it a dark skinned man was sitting and, as soon as he saw them, he stood up with a smile.

"Oh, what do we have here?" asked the man.

"Exactly as promised, Minister," older-Harry said, shaking the man's hand. He turned to Harry and his friends from the past. "Everybody this is Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic. Minister, these-"

"I think I know pretty well who they are," said the man, shaking their hands. He had already greeted older-Hermione cheerfully. "It is an honor,"

Harry answered with a shy smile. On the walls, the people in the portraits seemed pretty interested in them.

The tall black man was bald and broad-shouldered, and never stopped smiling at them, which made Harry feel comfortable. It appeared as if they were not going to be accused of anything, at least. The man flicked his wand and a chair for each of them came out of the solid floor.

Almost right away, two witches and one wizard came into the office, not by the fireplace but through the main doors. They were there to witness the meeting and to see what could be done. All of them looked interested and greeted them happily. One blond witch, who Harry heard was named Annelise, was exchanging a few comments with older-Hermione about the runes she saw the previous day.

"All right, so what do we have?" Kingsley started once he was back at his seat.

"Not much, Minister, the runes in the book are pretty old. We would need some time to find out even how to translate them," said older-Hermione.

"I see, you said there was no problem with them being here?"

"Not for the time being, as long as we erase their memories we can keep their timeline identical to this one."

The brown-haired wizard in the back grabbed their attention. "We would probably want to use some spells on them if they remain here for a long time... in case they grow up a little," he added.

Harry was surprised. What did he meant by grow up? How much time were they going to stay there?

Apparently Hermione had the same doubts, because she spoke right away. "Grow up?! But we are not going to take too long to return, are we?"

Her older self gave her a weak smile and said, "We don't know yet, but don't worry, we will handle it. Even with the research it shouldn't take more than a few months, I hope."

"Months?!"

"These runes are pretty old, it is the first time I've seen some of them," the older Hermione answered with a light tone of excitement. "We would need to gather all what is needed for you to return and probably then meet the requirements of the incantation... It is likely we would need to look for some books on Ancient Runes and..."

"Hermione," interrupted older-Harry, "I think that they got it, it's not an easy job."

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny exchanged worried looks.

"We will find the way soon, I promise," older-Hermione tried to calm them down.

"Are we sure we can find a way?" the Minister asked. "Surely spells could delay them from growing up, but they have a limit. We won't take more than a year for example, right?"

"Of course not, Minister, a few months at most. I have already talked with the right people, we know where to start," older-Hermione added and the other two witches backed her up.

"This is good news, anything else I can help on?" the Minister asked.

"Not for the time being, we are looking at it with the best we have."

"It's a good thing you have the experts now," added older-Harry. "I'm not very good at runes and I'm afraid I need to return to work, there's a lot of paper work to handle."

"At least Ron's not in charge of that," said older-Hermione.

"You know him, he was not made for boring tasks." Older-Harry grinned and noticed the confused expressions on the younger faces, so he decided to clear things up. "I'm the Head Auror, but I have been busy with this. I left someone else in charge yesterday. Ron used to work there too, years ago."

Head Auror? Him? Ron had been there too? Harry couldn't believe it; however, he found himself really liking the idea. Defense Against the Dark Arts was the subject where he felt most comfortable, especially after last year. Remus Lupin had been an amazing professor. In their own seats, Hermione and Ginny were looking at him and Ron as if they were completely different people.

Harry wished he could ask more about Ron, though, understand what were they talking about. Ron was just as curious. If the redhead's older self was not working in the Auror Office anymore, where was he now?

Unfortunately, they didn't get the chance to voice these doubts.

"What are you planning for them?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked, referring to the young attendees. "Where are they staying? What are they going to do all this time?"

"We haven't thought much about it, we were waiting for this conversation to hear your opinion. Last night they slept at the Burrow," older-Harry answered.

For an entire minute the Minister of Magic remained silent, thinking deeply about it. "You say their memories are going to be wiped before sending them back?"

Older-Harry nodded. "It's the best thing to do, they already know too much. Even if we keep them secured and don't say anything more, we would still need to erase their memories."

Kingsley Shacklebolt sighed. "In that case, I don't think I can say anything on the matter. You can all decide what to do, I can ask Professor Martin to put them in Hogwarts if you want. You aren't really planning on keeping them locked in with Molly Weasley for months, are you?"

Harry was shocked, but he didn't know exactly about what. The Minister was behaving a lot better than he expected, and he was even offering them to go to Hogwarts for some time. He didn't know what to think - going to Hogwarts would be nice, but wouldn't it be awkward with James there? He probably knew some of the parents of the students currently attending too. On the other hand, the Minister had mentioned Professor Martin... Who was he? What about Dumbledore?

His older self surely saw the confused expression on their faces. "Professor Zalman Martin is the current headmaster of Hogwarts. He took the post from Professor McGonagall a few years ago."

"But-"

"Later."

Harry nodded. Next to him, Hermione was looking very surprised too. She seemed to be struggling between being happy about going to Hogwarts and refusing the whole idea. The boy hoped his friend wouldn't suggest that they spend the entire time in Ron's room only to avoid knowledge from the future.

Older-Hermione exchanged a few whispers with Harry's older self and they both eventually agreed on something. "We will need to explain a lot of things, all of it maybe, but we can't ask them to stay in the Burrow if we are going to take this long," older-Harry said.

"We are going to erase their memories, after all," added older-Hermione.

"It's up to them," the man said and turned to look at the four students who appeared to be quite troubled.

Soon Ron and Harry expressed that they wanted to go to Hogwarts, even when they wouldn't remember anything of it, and Ginny agreed too. Hermione was frowning, thinking it deeply, but she ended up accepting too.

"Maybe I can look for something in the Hogwarts library to help us."

"Really?!" Ron asked. "Let... well, yourself do this, she knows much more about these things."

Hermione frowned, and her older self gave her a weak smile. "I'm afraid he's right, I don't think Hogwarts's library has a lot of information on time travel. However, if you want to do it either way, I would appreciate the help," the woman said.

"It is done then, I'll call Zalman and ask him to sent letters to them and prepare for their arrival," said the minister. "Also... Gadrick?"

"Yes, Minister?" asked the brown-haired wizard.

"Let the Daily Prophet know the entire truth. I don't want surprises from people who see them at Diagon Alley."

"Of course, Minister."

Older-Harry stepped up, turning to his friend. "It is done, then, the younger Harry and Ginny will come with me. You take yours?" The bushy-haired woman doubted for a moment but she nodded.

"I think you would be better with us than at the Burrow," explained the man, "at least for today. I think we will be taking you to the Quidditch World Cup tomorrow. You can decide if you want to go back to the Burrow after that. How about it?"

Ron's enthusiastic shout surprised Harry right away, but he couldn't suppress a smile. He was going to see a Quidditch World Cup after all. Harry was confused about the arrangements, though. If the older Ron and Ginny couldn't receive themselves, Harry imagined Ron would stay with him while Ginny went with Hermione. It was weird being separated like that.

They gave their good-byes, and after older-Hermione exchanged some words with the other witches, they all flooded back to the Burrow. There, they explained everything to Mrs. Weasley, who liked the decision a lot.

"I still need to get my younger self into a Pensieve, mind if I borrow yours before I return to work?" older-Hermione asked older-Harry.

"Of course, only the kids must be there. I'll explain some things once there."

Harry was going to meet his family after all, he didn't know if he was excited or nervous.

"All right then, the_ Potters' House_ is the name you want to use in the fireplace. Don't be surprised if you find the place a bit... roomy, it is a large property," the man said to all of them.

As soon as he said that, Harry found himself completely shocked. "I-it is?"

"Yes, you have a huge inheritance waiting for you when you turn of age. A few houses, but right now we're going to the main estate. It is not that old though, most of the Potters' wealth is rather recent. We don't use that house a lot since it is quite spacious, we stay there mostly on holidays, it has a big Quidditch pitch, so... there's that,"

Hermione, Ron and Ginny were really surprised too, they couldn't stop staring at Harry. "B-but my vault..."

"It's only a trust vault, only for school years. You'll get the real one eventually."

It was very surprising to discover that. Harry had already thought that his trust vault was more than he could ever spend, and apparently he had way more. Houses and everything - Harry didn't know how to feel about that.

Nervously, they headed to the Potter House, and Harry was especially careful of not saying the wrong name. The place where they arrived was huge. It had a very high ceiling and at least four people could stand in the fireplace at the same time if they wanted to. The room was filled with comfortable couches and fancy tapestries in red and gold, and on the walls there were portraits of people talking cheerfully. Harry imagined that those were his ancestors.

"Fleamont Potter, our grandfather, earned most of the Potters' current fortune. He built this house," older-Harry said as soon as he stepped out of the fireplace. "You see, the Potter lineage has a long history, it goes back centuries; still, most of the riches are new."

Harry nodded open-mouthed as he moved his eyes around. The house was wide; however, it felt cozy and very warm too. The walls looked young, but the decorations on them seemed to be old family relics. The thing that interested Harry the most, though, was the mention of his grandfather, of whom he didn't know much. The older Harry appeared to understand that and he promised to talk more about their family later.

"Well this is the main living room, make yourselves at home," the older Harry said once everyone was out of the fireplace.

"Main living room? You have more than one?!" asked Ron, stunned.

The man smiled. "Two, and another on the upper floor, way smaller and a little more private."

Ron gaped, and at his side, Hermione was looking with astonishment in all directions. Ginny's brown eyes were wide open.

"This is... big," the redhead girl said. "We could get lost."

"I know my way around, don't worry," the man answered as he walked to a corridor at the opposite direction of the fireplace. Ginny blushed at the smile he gave her. "Come here, Hermione, both of you, the office is a few- "

He didn't get to finish, because at that moment, a woman with a flaming red hair appeared from another corridor and embraced him, giving older-Harry a very passionate kiss.

"Did you find out what was wrong? Did you send them back?" she asked in a soft voice, still grasped to his neck. The woman had her back to the younger group, so she hadn't seen them yet. Harry realized she was his wife and blushed right away. He didn't know who she was, but her voice sounded weirdly familiar. At least it was not Hermione, after all. He turned to his side and saw Hermione smiling at his reaction. Ginny was stunned.

"Err... not yet, look there's something I need to..." older-Harry tried to say, looking at them from over the woman's shoulder.

"You are going to return to work, aren't you?" the woman moved her head closer to the man and spoke more softly. "You are the Head of the Office you can surely take a couple of hours. Did Hermione return to her house too? The kids are outside, maybe she can watch them for a while so we can..."

Older-Hermione coughed quickly, interrupting her. The redhead woman turned swiftly, looking a little pink. "Hermione would love to, but unfortunately it would have to be another day, as she is going to return to work shortly," said the older version of Harry's friend.

Harry got his first clear view of the redhead woman then, and she was stunning. Maybe she was around Harry's age, but she looked in her late twenties; she was a little short with an athletic build and Harry found her face beautiful. The woman had tiny little freckles on her cheeks which fit very well with her chocolate brown eyes. Looking at the surprised woman, Harry knew he had seen her before, somewhere. He was sure of that.

"Eh... hi Hermione..." The woman answered to the smirking older-Hermione, then spoke to the Older-Harry. "You didn't say that you were bringing them here."

"We didn't know either, it just happened. You were supposed to be working too."

"Well, tomorrow is the World Cup, mister, the Prophet sent me home to have everything ready." The woman was now blushing and moving her eyes between the younger audience, especially Harry and Ginny. The wedding band on her finger was now noticeable and it was a fact that she was his wife. Harry's face was red and his eyes were fixed on the floor.

The redhead woman spoke again, quietly this time and to no one in particular, saying, "Do they know? They don't seem to know."

"That's because they don't," answered older-Hermione in a rather reproachful tone. "Harry was supposed to explain them here, he was sure you were at work."

"Well, you should introduce me then."

Older-Harry sighed. "All right, err... Everyone, this is my wife. Ginevra Potter."

A very loud gasp came out of Ginny, who covered her mouth with both hands. She was completely red and her eyes couldn't get bigger. She turned to look at Harry, but as soon as she found him looking back at her, she moved her eyes away. Hermione couldn't smile wider; Ron appeared to be very confused.

"Oh Merlin, look at me," the redhead woman said. "What year did you said they come from?"

"Almost my fourth, your third. Exactly one day before the Quidditch Cup." This came from the older Harry.

"Well, that explains the reaction," the woman with the fiery hair said, her cheeks slightly pink.

Harry was beyond shock, he hadn't realized it at first but once his older self said it, he knew that the woman couldn't be any other person but Ginny Weasley. He didn't know what to think; the girl surely fancied him since the first time she saw him, but for him she was only Ron's little sister. Harry couldn't understand how he could marry the blushing girl who was next to Hermione.

"G-Gi-Ginny?" asked Ron.

"Hi, had a nice trip here?" answered the redhead woman quite awkwardly.

Ron then turned to look at Harry, "You fancy my sister? W-when.. Why do you...?"

"I-I-"

With a noticeable frown on his face, Ron started yelling all kinds of things at Harry. "Why the hell did you marry her? Are you bloody nuts?"

Harry was taken aback by Ron's sudden outburst. "I don't... I don't know..."

"Ron stop it, leave him alone," Hermione said with a frown, trying to get a hold of him.

"She's my little sister!" Ron yelled.

"RON!" Ginny shouted unhappily, still looking quite red.

The older people were taken by surprise, but older-Ginny soon came out of it and frowned. "Ron! Leave him alone."

When Ron got over the initial surprise, he insisted, with a lower voice this time, "He's supposed to be my friend, he can't go around snogging... Ginny... you."

"He sure can! He's my husband and I'll snog his brains out if I want to, now stop this rubbish!" older-Ginny yelled. Her husband was slightly red and so were their younger versions.

Ron was scared. "I-it's... but..."

"But nothing! I don't go around telling you to stop snogging Hermione whenever I go to your house, do I?"

Both Hermione's and Ron's eyes expanded at once, the bushy haired girl turned to older-Hermione, who after the surprise just gave her a weak smile. "Sorry?" the woman said questioningly.

"I-I-It can't be..." Hermione turned nervously to Ron, blushing.

"They didn't know?" older-Ginny asked her husband, who shook his head. "Then what did you tell them? No one called her Mrs. Weasley at the Ministry?"

"We were going to tell them here. There were no problems at the Ministry, we Floo-ed directly to Kingsley's office, remember?"

The last few minutes had been completely out of this world for Harry. He was glad that the attention was moved to Hermione and Ron, but even when the last information about them had been shocking, he couldn't stop thinking about Ginny. When did he fall in love with her? How?

"Sorry to interrupt this, but I don't have a lot of time. Can we go to the Pensieve now?" older-Hermione asked.

"Err... sure follow me," older-Harry said before moving to his wife. "Can you keep an eye on them for a moment? Don't hex Ron, perhaps?"

"I'll give it a try," older-Ginny said, giving him a peck on the lips as the man walked out of the room. Ron snorted while Harry and Ginny tried to look as far away from each other as possible, blushing. Both of the Hermiones walked out after older-Harry, the younger one gave Ron a strange look before following with a frown.

When older-Ginny asked them to sit down, Harry, Ginny and Ron took different couches. Older-Ginny snorted. After thinking briefly about it, the woman sat next to Harry, looking warmly towards Ginny. Harry was startled and blushed, of course. The younger redhead girl looked surprised.

"Mind to tell me everything that happened?" the woman asked Harry softly.

Harry nodded, and with a lot of trouble, he managed to form the words and explain the entire meeting at the Minister's office. By the time he finished, the people were back from the Pensieve. Older-Hermione looked satisfied and had a different drawing in her hands.

"I have to return, need to put everything in order before tomorrow's trip," the bushy-haired woman said. "Harry, are you coming too?"

The man doubted, looking at his wife, but after a moment he nodded. "Need to, need to set the last preparations for tomorrow."

"Can I leave them with you? We'll pick them up in the afternoon," the woman asked older-Ginny.

"Of course, but I warn you, I'll hex Ron if I need to," she answered, and Ron jumped a little bit in place.

"Absolutely." Older-Hermione smiled.

"They can stay here as long as you want, you could say we have some space." Older-Harry grinned. "We could take them to the game and meet you there."

Older-Hermione shook her head. "Thanks but I believe Rose and Hugo would like to meet them. We'll come for them later."

"Rose? Hugo?" Ron asked.

"The kids. Your kids. You'll love them, they only talk about Quidditch and those things," the woman said, smiling. Ron and Hermione blushed deeply of course.

After that, older-Harry and older-Hermione left, and they were all in the care of an older Ginny. The woman smiled and said they would have a wonderful time with the kids.

"Dingly," older-Ginny called, and a creature popped out of the thin air.

"Dobby?" Harry asked.

The house elf was confused. "My name is Dingly, master Harry?" the elf said as older-Ginny showed a sad smile.

The older version of Ginny explained everything to the house elf. It turned out the elf was a female and was at the service of the Potters, she took care of all the domestic matters of the huge house. After looking at her again, Harry noticed her clothes were cleaner and far better than Dobby's.

Hermione was looking carefully at the elf, but no matter what she was planning to say, older-Ginny stopped her by saying the elf was happily at their service. Unlike Dobby, she was paid and had a day off. Apparently older-Hermione had made a law at the Ministry about it. Everyone was shocked of finding out about that.

"Dingly, can you prepare rooms for our guests?" the woman asked. "Two please, one for Harry and one for the younger me."

"Right away, mistress."

The elf disappeared and the older-Ginny was left sighing. "I wish she could just call me Ginny. Well, either way, make yourselves at home. If you need anything just call Dingly. Now we can go and meet the kids if you want to."

The whole walk to the Quidditch pitch was surrounded by great halls and amazing rooms. Harry's attention only moved between the two Ginnys, though. He was embarrassed when he was caught looking at either of them, but while one only smiled, the other kept blushing and lowering her sight. Ron was now closer to him, not because he had forgotten about Ginny and him, but because he wanted to stay as far away from Hermione as possible.

When they walked out and saw the enormous grounds surrounding the house, Harry was shocked. He almost fell to the floor in admiration. The building at their backs had only two floors, which were high. The house was made of dark grey stone and, because of its large windows, its red tapestries were visible from the outside. The grounds had a few gardens, a big pool, and some other things that Harry was not able to distinguish from a distance.

Then Harry's eyes saw the magnificent Quidditch pitch not far away on his right, and he froze. Little figures were flying around the three closest rings, and Harry's heart raced faster at the sudden realization that he was going to meet his future children.

"James! Al! Come here please!" older-Ginny yelled and the open space allowed her voice to reach the pitch. "Bring your sister!"

The figures stopped in midair and bolted towards them. Two were faster than the third one and seemed to be racing. When they got to where all of them were, it was clear that those were two boys on brooms. They were very fast, and as soon as the one in the front was a small distance from the floor, he jumped off, grinning and grabbing the broom in midair.

"I told you I would beat you!" The boy was smirking to the other one, who arrived behind him. He had dark hair and wore round-shaped glasses; he appeared to have little freckles on his face too. Harry recognized him: it was James, the boy who brought them to that future.

"Woah! They're here! Are they going to stay? Are they going to go the game?" James asked.

"It seems like they will dear, we don't know for how long though," the redhead woman answered.

"Hear that, Al?"

The four people from the past were still shocked at James physical similarities to Harry, and when the second boy came they gasped. Al was younger, but he looked a lot more like Harry than James; his hair was black and his eyes deep green. He was almost like a little copy of himself with the exception that he didn't use glasses.

"Brilliant!" the boy said.

"Why didn't you wait for your sister? I told you to bring her here."

"She's coming already," James answered.

As soon as he said that, the third broom arrived, ridden by a little girl with flaming red hair. It was almost like seeing Ginny again for the first time.

The girl beamed as soon as she saw them. "They're really here, she looks exactly like your pictures, Mum," the little girl said, staring at Ginny, who blushed. Harry thought he saw her smile as she lowered her sight.

"Of course, sweetheart," older-Ginny said. "These are my children. James, Al and Lily," she said, grabbing each one's shoulder at a time. Harry couldn't suppress a smile behind his blushed cheeks; it looked like a nice family and two of them were even named after his parents. As he thought about it, those names made perfect sense to him.

"Nice to meet you," said Hermione.

James was the first shaking her hand. "Hey Aunt Hermione, cool teeth!"

"James!"

"Sorry Mum," the boy said as Hermione covered her mouth. Harry remembered that older-Hermione's front teeth were not as large as they used to be, as she had probably changed those at some point.

Soon everyone from the past was greeting the Potter kids. Lily was especially warm towards Ginny and Harry, hugging them tightly. Both of them turned very red.

"They're smaller than James," the girl said, obviously not talking about Ron.

"They're younger than James, dear," older-Ginny said, turning to them. "James is about to start his fifth year, and he's very talented. We expect great things from him, after all, if he brought about people from the past, he can surely bring a lot of O.W.L.s home too." She ended by looking at the boy with a frown.

Al smirked as his brother had trouble finding an answer to that.

"You can play Quidditch for a while, we can have lunch after," older-Ginny smiled.

"Great! Three per team then," a very eager James said. "One keeper, two chasers. It will be better than teaching Lily how to fly."

"I want Mum and Dad on my team!" Lily said, pulling Harry and Ginny towards the Quidditch pitch.

Ron seemed willing to say something, but since older-Ginny glared at him he only snorted and looked the other way. "Ginny does not play Quidditch," he blurted.

"Excuse me?" the redhead woman asked, almost laughing.

"Mum played for the Holyhead Harpies, you know," said Al.

Ron was shocked. "No way!"

"I could sign you a poster later," the woman said, smiling, and everybody laughed at Ron. Harry was surprised by it too, but decided not to say anything. He really didn't know that Ginny Weasley played Quidditch and much less that she would be able to play for a professional team.

"I retired before James was born, I work for the Daily Prophet now, Sports correspondent of course so I'll be covering tomorrow's game," older-Ginny said smiling. "I still play now and then, though, mostly for fun."

The younger Ginny was beaming.

"Mum and Dad are with me, then," Lily insisted, still holding their hands. Their faces were deep red, but they didn't try to let go of the little girl's hands. It wouldn't be right to upset the daughter they just met. Harry was trying to find something interesting to see, looking to his left, while Ginny's eyes were staring at the floor.

"Fine! Have it your way," said James. "We'll take Uncle Ron, Mum and Dad don't know anything about being a Keeper." The boy stuck his tongue out at his sister.

"I don't care!"

The look that older-Ginny gave little Lily was clear. She knew James was right, they couldn't win without a Keeper no matter how good Ginny was or what position she played. "Give them our brooms James, and pick a good one for your Uncle too," the woman said. "I'll watch, I guess Hermione won't play either, right? It's ok if you want to."

"No, I'll watch too. Thanks," the bushy-haired girl said.

"I thought so."

The brooms were amazing. Ginny got to play with her older self's broom - it was a professional one, the most recent version of Harry's Firebolt. Ginny's eyes were sparkling and she couldn't take them away from the broom, and from the house older-Ginny was looking at her with a wide smile.

Harry then received a Nimbus 2500 from James. It was the broom that older-Harry used, and an impressive one too, so he couldn't stop staring at it. Ron didn't complain because he got a Nimbus 2200 and it was by far the best broom he had ever mounted. He didn't look that mad anymore.

At that moment, Ginny gasped and when Ron and Harry turned, they discovered what had caused that reaction. At the handle of Ginny's Firebolt, there was an inscription with shining golden letters: Ginny Potter 7.

That was the same broom the older Ginny used for playing with the Harpies, it even had her number next to it. Harry blushed, but not as much as Ginny, who was gaping. James was very close, laughing as Ron glared at all of them.

"You're lucky, Mum never lets us use her broom," Al said.

"Well she is Mum! She can use it."

"Guess you're right..." Al answered. "Besides, you had broken too many brooms already. Mum doesn't want you near hers."

James snorted and made a hand gesture as if that was not a problem.

Lily had a smaller broom, but for a girl of her age it seemed like an amazing one. It was painted all in red and it had_ Red Comet_ written on one side. "Are we going to play or what?" the girl asked.

The moment Harry was in the air, he felt the speed and power of his broom; it was unbelievable, even faster than his Firebolt. Not far away, Ron was moving around, quite impressed too. When the black-haired boy looked for Ginny, he noticed she was not around. He soon saw her still on the ground; the redhead girl seemed doubtful.

"What's the problem? You know how to do it, show that brother of yours how it's done," older-Ginny yelled from a bench at one side of the field, Hermione with her. "You can grab my gloves if you want!"

Ron's sister shook her head and slowly flew next to Lily, as far from Harry as possible. Her eyes grew when she noticed the speed of her broom.

The match was not fair at all. James and Al were pretty decent Chasers, especially James, but it was Ron who made the difference. It was not that he was the perfect Keeper, but he stopped a lot of good shots that Harry couldn't on their own side of the pitch. Harry was a very lousy Keeper.

"Hermione says that was a good save, Ron!" older-Ginny yelled once, and she was grinning. Even from that high, Harry could see Hermione hiding her face behind her long bushy hair. Ron almost fell from his broom; he was blushing so much and had a scared look on his face.

Ginny smirked at Ron's trouble, but when Harry smiled at her, the girl's face turned red too and she looked away. Harry didn't know if he was supposed to start talking more to Ron's sister now, he was curious about what happened between them, but he was nervous and he wouldn't know what to say. They were going to erase their memories either way so it maybe was pointless, it was not like it could be something easy to do either.

"She's not that good," Ron said after a while, and Ginny frowned at him.

Things changed a bit after that, since the redhead stopped trying to hide from Harry and decided to focus on the rings behind Ron. She was brilliant, and Harry was gladly surprised by her moves. Ginny was just as good as James, and she even pulled out a couple of moves and feints that left her sons stunned and Ron speechless.

It was not enough, though, as Harry couldn't stop many of James's and Al's attacks. Lily came, frowning, to Harry after a while and complained about it, saying that she wanted to try being a Keeper. After a few arguments, he found no way of opposing. Older-Ginny was nodding from the bench too.

Lily was not very good either, but as soon as James threw his first shot at his sister, the redhead woman yelled, "Go easy on your sister James!"

"But Mum!"

"Do as I say!"

In the end, James agreed, frowning, and that made Harry's team recover a bit, but there was no way of getting close enough to even think about a tie. They lost impressively, of course.

Soon they were all back at the house, cheerfully eating the lunch Dingly had prepared. Everybody seemed less tense when they were talking about the Quidditch game and not thinking about all what they now knew about the future. Ginny even spoke again and answered a few Quidditch questions, smiling widely. However, she still blushed every time she noticed Harry looking at her.

"It's quite good," Hermione said about the food.

"Dingly made it, Mum does not cook," James said.

"James! I do cook, but not on weekdays, I have a job you know," Ginny smiled.

The conversation continued. Ron glared a few times at Harry and Ginny, but most of the time he was distracted with Quidditch chat. Older-Ginny knew how to silence him either way, it was only matter of mentioning a certain bushy-haired girl. Hermione and Ron didn't exchange words the entire time.

They also learned then that Ron was currently working for George's joke shop. Older-Ginny said Fred was in the business too, but she didn't look at them when she said it.

After lunch, older-Ginny took the girls apart to talk a bit, so Harry and Ron were left with the sons. There was a moment when Ron didn't know what to say, but it changed after Al mentioned the magic words.

"Wizarding Chess?" he asked, and Ron's face brightened up.

They were still playing in the living room when the green flames burst in the fireplace and older-Harry, older-Hermione, and a very tall redheaded man came out of it laughing.

"So here they are! I was sure I was just a bit taller at that age," older-Ron said to older-Harry.

"Me too," the man answered. "Guess that every time I think about fourth year I remember us like we looked after the Yule Ball. You were taller by then, I think."

Older-Hermione snorted. "It was probably that dress he was wearing."

"Oi! It was not a dress, those were formal robes and I- you know what? Forget it."

The three older people laughed a bit as Harry and Ron stared at them. It was bizarre, looking at that exchange.

"Dad!" Al yelled and walked towards them. "How was work?"

"Hey! Definitely more boring that your day. Nothing important happened," the man said, ruffling the boy's black hair.

"Paper work is always boring," said older-Ron.

"Not always, you made it interesting a few times. I remember having to rescue you from a pile of papers once."

"That was not interesting..."

"Come on! One time you sent a group of Aurors to the wrong city," older-Harry frowned.

"It was an accident! Besides, I would have found out... eventually."

James stood up then. He was playing against Ron at that moment and he obviously didn't care that much about a Wizarding Chess match that he was certainly going to lose. "We played Quidditch, it was great, but you could work on your Keeper skills."

Harry blushed, looking at the floor, and older-Harry didn't miss that as he moved his eyes between his younger self and James, smiling. "I'm surely not that bad."

"You're rubbish as a Keeper mate, you have to accept that," older-Ron added, and everyone laughed.

The girls came then, and as soon as Lily saw the older people she rushed towards older-Harry and threw herself into his arms. "Daddy!"

With a little effort Harry pulled her from the floor, spun her around and placed her back next to him."How's my little girl? Did your brothers let you play?" The girl nodded quickly as both Ginnys and Hermione came into the room.

"I was with you and Mum, little Mum. You were the Keeper, you're not very good."

More laughs spread around as the man looked defeated. "Told you," older-Ron said.

"Hey, how was your day?" older-Ginny said, walking to them and giving her husband a little peck on the lips. Harry blushed once more.

"It's getting better," her husband answered, caressing her cheek.

Older-Ron was smiling, but he soon moved his eyes between the couple and his younger self. "Is he... I mean me... well you know, whatever... is he giving you trouble?"

"Not that much after we mentioned you and Hermione," older-Ginny answered, making both Ron and Hermione go red.

"Good, I'll talk to him later," the red haired man said. "Now, err... little me, little Hermione, come here. It's time to go."

The young Hermione said good-bye to everybody including Harry; it appeared as if she wanted to talk to him about something but she just leaned closer and whispered, "She's a nice girl, we'll talk later." Then the bushy-haired girl walked to her older self. Hermione, of course, threw older-Ron a curious look. When the man said hi and smiled at her, she blushed.

Ron said his shy goodbyes too, and when he talked to Harry he didn't look upset. "See you at the game, mate, I can't believe I don't have a favorite."

"It's Ireland," older-Ron said calmly and James grinned.

"That's not what Hugo thinks..." Al started.

"Well, he's been hanging way too much with George these days, listen to Rosie or me. It's Ireland," older-Ron said. "I don't know what's wrong with Hugo, really."

"Ron! There's nothing wrong with Hugo," older-Hermione frowned. "You shouldn't be putting them against each other. It's okay if they cheer different teams..."

Older-Ron turned to older-Harry. "She'll never get Quidditch, mate." The bushy-haired woman rolled her eyes.

"You can stay for a while if you want to," older-Ginny said.

"It would be nice, but I don't want to leave my children with George for too long, I don't trust him or that Joke shop one bit," older-Hermione answered.

Soon the two Rons and the two Hermiones were ready to go - the younger versions seemed to be trying to stay apart from each other.

"Oh come on, she doesn't bite," older-Ron told his younger self. "Well... maybe if a kiss gets a little out of-"

"RON!" older-Hermione yelled, turning quite red; even so, it was their younger selves who blushed harder than ever.

"I... we... didn't want that picture in our head, right?" older-Ginny asked her younger version, who was shaking her head violently.

"No one did!" James said.

After they were gone, older-Harry sat down on a couch, willing to listen to all the details about the Quidditch match, especially those which involved little Lily. Ginny appeared to be unsettled in that family environment, but at least she didn't looked as nervous as earlier, and she even smiled and laughed a bit. Harry kept throwing her confused looks, which weren't ignored by the two adults. Older-Harry whispered something to his wife, and Harry was sure it had something to do with him.

Their older selves showed them around the house, and they were halfway through the library when it was clear they were not going to finish the tour in one day.

When the day was over, Lily said her good-nights and gave Harry a very warm hug, which made him blush. The little girl practically forced him to say good night to Ginny, and even give her a hug. Older-Ginny smirked at the crimson colors on their cheeks. After that, Lily pulled Ginny upstairs, leading her to her bedroom.

James and Al took Harry upstairs too. "Sleep well, we'll wake you up tomorrow," older-Ginny said.

"I can't believe that it's really tomorrow, it's going to be amazing!" James was saying as they started climbing the steps of the huge stairway.

Harry's room was bigger and much more comfortable than he could have imagined. The bed was huge and the drawers were filled with nice clothes that fit him. Red and gold decorated everything, and he was surprised to find a picture of his parents on a small nightstand next to the bed.

It took a while for him to get some sleep, because he couldn't stop thinking about the bunch of things that happened that day or that were surely going to happen the next one; he was going to go to a Quidditch World Cup after all, Hermione and Ron would be there (probably acting pretty awkward), he was richer than he thought and had an amazing broom too. Harry also had a family and it seemed like pretty nice one. He had kids, he was probably going to attend Hogwarts with them, he was the Head Auror...

There were too many things to think about as he turned off the light and drifted off to sleep, but there was one he couldn't take out of his head, not even for a single moment: Ginny Weasley.


	6. A Crowd Of Redheads

**Thanks again to PeridotPi for the help betaing this chap.**

* * *

Harry felt as if he had just fallen asleep when he was woken up again. It was pretty early in the day, so his surroundings were dark and blurry, and he couldn't distinguish much besides the big comfortable bed he was in. Still, even in his confusion, Harry was able to notice that someone was knocking at the door.

"Are you decent?" a woman's voice asked.

"Errm... yeah." Harry answered, still half-asleep.

Quickly, he raised his upper body from the comfy bed and picked his glasses up from the nightstand next to him. Harry remembered where he was and all what had happened the day before perfectly well; nevertheless, the huge and fancy bedroom had caught him off guard for a second. He was not used to all that space.

The door opened slightly, and a distant light made its way into the bedroom. A woman then peeked inside.

"Good morning," she said as she yawned. The woman was wearing a blue night robe, and her flaming red hair was all messy.

"'Mo-morning" Harry answered to the older Ginny, blushing.

"Hope you had a nice sleep, but it was too short in my opinion," older-Ginny complained, smiling and still rubbing her chocolate brown eyes a bit. "It's time to go. I have a job to get to. We'll be eating a light breakfast before leaving." Even with all the weirdness of the situation, Harry's eyes sparkled and he smiled. They were going to a Quidditch World Cup after all.

Harry nodded. "Thanks, I'll be there soon."

"Pack clothes for two or three days, it's always good to be prepared. There's a bag somewhere over there." The woman pointed to a trunk on one corner of the room and smiled slightly before leaving.

When the door was closed, Harry practically jumped out of bed towards the drawers. As he searched for something to pack, his thoughts kept racing back to his new family and Ginny. He still couldn't understand how he ended up marrying her, but it seemed like they were very happy and had a great family, and that was more than Harry could ask for.

A minute later Harry finished packing. He picked up the bag and his wand from the bed; then he headed to the door, but before he could reach it, someone knocked again.

"Good morning Dad," a black-haired boy said as Harry opened the door; for an instant, Harry thought he had opened a door to a hidden mirror. Al was smiling widely, already dressed and carrying a green backpack. It was impressive how much the boy looked like Harry.

"Good morning," Harry answered.

"James is still in the bathroom..." the younger boy whined as he set his eyes on Harry's bag. "What do you have there? I got mine full." Al opened his backpack a bit and showed Harry loads of green stuff with Ireland's name on it. Some of those things were shining and spinning.

Harry smiled excitedly, "I-I don't... it's just clothes," he said, waving his own bag.

"Oh, Mum packed our clothes ages ago. I only have things for the game here. Let's go downstairs." Harry nodded at his future son - just the thought made his head turn.

The hallways in the house all looked the same to Harry since he couldn't distinguish between the different Potters in the portraits; also, most of the people in those paintings were currently asleep, so they were not of much help either way. Fortunately, Al knew his way around pretty well.

In no time they were walking down the large staircase, talking lively about the upcoming game. Al was very enthusiastic in his descriptions about both teams, and Harry couldn't avoid sharing his excitement.

A moment later, when they were approaching the kitchen, Harry heard a voice that made him stop in his way. "Don't worry, I won't say a thing," said a young man.

"Let's just all enjoy the game and we'll tell them later," a man answered and Harry knew that it was his older self's voice.

Harry turned to look at Al, who only shrugged nervously and hurried him into the kitchen. Harry's older self was making some kind of juice not far away while Dingly, the house elf, moved on with the breakfast. There was a long wooden breakfast bar in the middle and a young man was sitting on one of the stools there - surely the owner of the first voice from before. Harry had to look at him twice to make sure that his hair really was bright blue.

"Hey there! Have a seat!" older-Harry said as soon as he saw them.

Al sat next to the young man, greeting him naturally, so Harry followed; whatever was being said before they arrived, was surely nothing. The older Harry couldn't be talking about them - it didn't make sense to hide things when their memories were going to be erased anyway.

"This is Teddy Lupin, he's my godson. He's coming to the game with us," older-Harry said, taking the boy out of his thoughts.

Harry's eyes grew big and he didn't know if it was because of the godson part or the man's surname. It was quite possible that he had a godson, even when it felt odd for him; but on the other hand, he wasn't sure if Lupin was a common surname.

"Lu-Lupin?" he asked, looking at the grinning young man.

Older-Harry smiled. "He's Remus son."

"Oh." Harry paled, remembering his former professor, and he turned to look at the young man, not quite picturing him as a furry blue werewolf.

"He's not a werewolf, by the way," older-Harry added, imagining what his younger self was thinking. "He can change his hair and face, though - he got that from his mother."

Teddy Lupin smirked as his hair turned bright orange, and out of nowhere he grew an orange beard; the next moment, his hair was blue again and there was no facial hair to be seen.

Al laughed and Harry smiled widely. "Brilliant."

"It's useful in the job, you know," Teddy said. "I'm an Auror, or I'm trying to be; your older self is always saying I'm in training, even when I finished it some time ago." he added frowning with a smile towards older-Harry.

"One never stops learning," the man replied, also smiling.

It didn't take long for both Ginnys and Lily to arrive in the kitchen. Lily was beaming and was waving a green Ireland flag with her right hand. Older-Ginny walked to Older-Harry, giving him a quick peck on the lips and, after greeting Teddy, she moved towards Dingly, trying to help with the breakfast. Lily insisted on sitting Ginny next to Harry, even when her parents told her not to push their younger selves. Harry and Ginny both blushed, their faces turning a brilliant crimson red.

"James! Hurry up! We'll leave you, if you're not down here in two minutes!" older-Ginny yelled with a loud voice worthy of Mrs. Weasley.

Harry was surprised but he laughed a bit; he wasn't sure if the woman's voice could reach that far in such a big house - maybe there was echo or something. At his side, Ginny lowered her eyes, looking embarrassed.

Breakfast was already served when James arrived; by then, Ginny had already found out about Teddy and was quite surprised that he was Professor Lupin's son. Harry was wondering about the professor and about another person too; however, he was nervous of asking, "Is Professor Lupin going to the game too?"

Everyone from the future exchanged weird looks, which was quite odd for Harry. They seemed gloomy and worried. "Err... no," answered older-Harry. "Remus is out of the country with Teddy's mother." Teddy was not looking at them; he was really serious.

"They've been out for a while," the young man added, not meeting his eyes.

"And... Padfoot?" Harry asked, not knowing if he could mention Sirius next to Ginny. The boy was worried that he might not be declared innocent yet, that there was no proof. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be on the run for twenty-five years.

Older-Ginny froze and looked, worried, at her husband.

"Padfoot?" the younger Ginny asked, confused.

"Sirius is with Remus too, he's got a girlfriend now. The four of them like to go out together," older-Harry said, smiling, but his eyes didn't reflect it. Harry was troubled now, especially since he saw the three children looking weirdly at each other.

"Sirius?... What Sirius?" asked Ginny with wide eyes, and Harry realized his older self had used his godfather's real name.

"Sirius Black, of course."

Ginny gasped, effectively turning breakfast into a quick explanation of Sirius' innocence. The red-haired girl was surprised of being the only one there who didn't know it. Even by the time they finished eating, Ginny still seemed to be trying to match the image of the demented criminal in the Ministry's posters with Harry's loyal godfather.

It was a rushed breakfast indeed, as they barely had time to ask a question or two about the future and the Quidditch World Cup. Harry didn't complain, though; the previous afternoon his older self had talked a lot about his family, especially his father and grandfather, and that was enough for the time being.

As it turned out, it was not the first Quidditch World Cup that the Potters were going to witness. Still, the Cup was taking place in England this time, so it would be a totally different experience. According to older-Harry, the other times they just flooed there, trying not to be noticed. Harry Potter's presence was always noticed, after all. This time, though, older-Harry was in charge of the security of the event as the Head Auror, and they would be trying to make their way through the crowds of people.

They hoped it would be less of a disturbance, since the British community of wizards and witches was more used to the existence of the Boy-Who-Lived by now.

To Harry, it was quite a shock to find out that he was so famous, even out of the country.

Soon, they all walked out of the house carrying a lot of bags and a couple of trunks. They decided the best way to go was by Apparition, so they prepared, warning Harry and Ginny that it was not going to be a nice sensation. Apparently, they could use portkeys too, but the nearest one was very far away. Harry made a mental note to ask what a portkey was later.

Older-Ginny disappeared with Lily first, and Harry had to rub his eyes to realize they had really left in less than a second. Then Teddy took Al, James and most of the bags that the girls had left behind. One moment they were there, and the next they weren't.

"Ready?" older-Harry asked them, and Ginny and Harry nodded shyly. The man took a package from the bag next to him, it looked like nothing at first, but Harry's jaw dropped when he found out what it was.

"I asked James for this yesterday; he and Al had been using it lately. You should keep it for now, at least during this trip," older-Harry said, extending the Invisibility Cloak before them. Ginny couldn't understand what was going on yet. "Most of the people there won't know about you yet, so let's keep you concealed for now. We want to avoid questions."

Ginny was surprised when she found out about Harry's Invisibility Cloak for sure and, once they were both completely covered by it, he saw a little red on her cheeks.

"Grab my arms," said older-Harry.

All of a sudden Harry felt a tug from around his navel and he was squeezed out of the world, only to be put back again at once. It was a rushed movement that made his vision fade to black and then return with shapes swiftly. It was a nasty sensation, and he felt like he could throw up any moment now. Ginny was not looking much better next to him.

Soon Harry distinguished everybody else. Teddy and James were a few feet away trying to put Al back on his feet; older-Ginny and Lily were a little farther away; they seemed to be all right too.

It took a moment for Harry to notice the tall trees around them, and that was only because of the crowd surrounding them as people kept Apparating constantly. It was incredible how many wizards and witches were arriving with each minute. Older-Harry hurried them in the same direction that everyone seemed to be going, trying to draw as little attention to them as possible.

All along Harry didn't miss the looks and words that every wizard gave to his older self; he was much more a celebrity than he ever had been. It was amazing how everybody recognized him right away, without even looking at his forehead, but the man didn't stop moving them through the woods.

"The game you were going to attend in fourth year was held in a place not much different from this one," older-Harry whispered. "There were many Muggles around and someone always needed to be erasing their memories. Fortunately, they picked Muggle-free places after that, because people started arguing that so many Obliviations could be harmful to them."

Harry nodded, but then realized his older self couldn't see that from under the cloak.

"I don't know why they picked places with Muggles in the first place," Teddy added, "Yes, they have to spend a lot more on concealment charms now, but it's worth skipping the risks."

Then, with their next step, Harry's jaw dropped.

"Woah!" James and Al shouted at the same time.

The trees were left behind and in front of them Harry could see a large terrain totally packed with tents of all colours. The green of Ireland and the blue of Scotland prevailed, though, and some of the tents were shining while others threw colorful blasts into the sky every few seconds. Harry also saw that most of the tents had chimneys.

"It's worth the spectacle, not having to hide," older-Ginny said. Harry couldn't agree more as he stared at the fireworks forming the figure of a green leprechaun, dancing in the skies.

Harry wasn't sure how many Galleon it cost to keep something like that concealed from the eyes of Muggles, but he imagined that it wasn't a small amount.

"Come on, we should keep walking. I already have our place reserved."

As they moved through the temporary streets, Harry was surprised by the tons of wizards and witches in there. He hadn't seen such an incredible diversity of magical people before - they even spoke languages that he couldn't recognize. Halfway there, he saw a bald man with a moustache even bigger than Uncle Vernon's, but the man was nothing like Harry's uncle. He wore hot pink robes and was getting out of a tent that was completely floating in the air; only four wooden stakes on the ground seemed to be holding it from flying right into the night.

Four tents away, James was knocked to the ground by what seemed to be a leprechaun chasing a rabbit. Harry and Ginny tried to walk in the middle of the group since they didn't want people stumbling against them; they were invisible, after all.

All that Harry could hear was madness and thundering noises. Well, noises and people greeting and waving at older-Harry and older-Ginny. Harry couldn't remember all their names; Bernard, Spitneck, Tretanny, Marcus...

A few times he thought he saw familiar faces, but he didn't dare to ask. A man who seemed to look a lot like an older version Blaise Zabini caught Harry's attention as he walked away in the distance.

"Here we are!" older-Harry said after a while, they now stood in front of an empty slot with a clear sign which spelled POTTER - WEASLEY

"Ron and Hermione aren't here yet," older-Ginny noted.

Older-Harry laughed. " I wonder which Ron is going to be harder to wake up."

"Probably the younger one, the other has Hermione to knock him out of the bed after all." older-Ginny replied, smirking.

The space seemed quite little if they were going to share it with Ron and Hermione, they had two kids of their own and their younger selves too, so that would make it almost fifteen people in a place that didn't seem able to hold more than seven. Harry didn't say anything of course.

Older-Harry started unpacking and when the tent was out, he extended it on the ground, "We're going to stay here with Ron and Hermione, we usually camp together so this tent will be enough. The rest of the Weasleys must be scattered around the place, you will surely see them later. They will all gather at Arthur's tent eventually" the man said.

Harry and Ginny nodded, and the man had to extend his arm, looking for their shoulders, to make sure they were still around.

"I have to go check on how the guys are, I'm the Head Auror and have to make sure things are safe here," older-Harry continued. "Teddy, do you mind raising the tent? I won't take long."

"No problem," Teddy said and older-Harry left quickly. "Good thing I'm not on duty today," he said, winking at the kids.

James and Al tried to help with one side of the tent, but before they were finished, Teddy came to them, smirking; he had already done his side - being able to use magic allowed Harry's future godson to put things up more quickly. James snorted, saying they shouldn't had done anything then.

Soon the tent was up, and again Harry thought that it was way too small.

The confusion grew bigger once he saw James, Al, Lily and older-Ginny crawling easily inside, "Come on in!" Teddy said levitating the bags as he crawled in there too.

Harry shrugged and they followed him into the tent, trying not to step on the cloak. Once inside his jaw dropped again. The space was huge - there was a big living room with a fireplace and a kitchen not far away. A few doors were scattered through the tent. It appeared as if it was the roomiest flat Harry had ever seen. He also noticed that the decoration was not very different from the Potter House.

"All right, we have five boys and four girls," older-Ginny started as she moved through the bedrooms, checking that everything was in place. Harry put out the cloak; as he did so, he pulled Ginny a bit towards him.

"Sorry," Harry said, and the two of them looked embarrassed.

Harry was confused. He certainly didn't have feelings for Ginny yet, he barely knew her. Actually, the day before he had wondered about Cho a couple of times, even when he put that thought aside quickly. It was obvious that whatever could happen with Cho was not meant to be, and he was way more interested in getting to know his future family better. Even so, that didn't clear things up with Ginny. A few days ago she was still Ron's little sister, but now he wasn't sure anymore.

Was the girl expecting something from him? Should he ask her out once they were at Hogwarts? Wouldn't it be weird?

"James can bunk with me," Teddy said then, and Harry's thoughts returned to the tent.

"Ok, then... Harry and Al, that one is yours..." the woman said, pointing at a door at the far left. "Ron and Hugo will be with you."

Harry and Al nodded.

The red-haired woman turned to Ginny. "That one is for Lily and you, Rose and Hermione will be there too." The girls nodded. "Every room has its own bathroom so no need to worry about that."

Harry was surprised in a very good way and rushed to the room to leave his bag there. There were two bunk beds in the bedroom, and he and Al picked the lower mattresses.

It didn't take long before all of them were chatting lively about the game in the living room. Harry decided that he really liked Teddy; he was a cheerful lad and he enjoyed changing his face as much as they did. Once in a while he could see a few gestures from his old professor too.

"Hello, anyone home?" The voice of the older Ron echoed some time later, and the redhead man entered the tent carrying what seemed to be like four big bags. Everyone stood up to greet them.

A bushy haired girl with a long red hair came next; her eyes were light blue and, if Hermione had not been walking just behind her, Harry would had thought that the first girl was his old friend. He recognized her from the Burrow's living room of course, but back then he didn't know who the girl was. Rose Weasley was beaming and had a big green hat with a yellow clover on it, which was spinning and sparkling all around.

Ron and a boy who could only be Hugo came next; they seemed to be in a heated discussion about the game; however, as soon as Ron saw the inside of the tent, he stopped and his jaw dropped. Older-Hermione came last, trying to hurry everyone in.

"Didn't you bring an Invisibility Cloak?" Ginny asked them.

Hermione was startled. "What?... you did? No, we used some charms to change our hair and... well, we just took those off outside."

Older-Ginny had hung a light brown bag over her shoulder and was heading to the door now. "Need to start with the interviews and pre-game stuff. I'll leave them with you, Harry is on patrol," she said.

"He is? He doesn't lose a minute, does he?" older-Ron asked as his wife nodded to the redhead woman. "Where are we by the way?"

Older-Ginny pointed to the back of the tent, "Last on the left, we are in the one in the front. The kids know where everyone else should be already."

"Brilliant," the older redhead man said.

"Mum, aren't you taking us to meet the players?"

Older-Ginny turned quickly, "These are international players, James, they might not know me. Even so, I'll see what I can do. Maybe tomorrow." She winked.

"Wicked!"

"Hey, Gin!"

"What Ron? Can't you see that I'm in a hurry?" older-Ginny said to the redhead man; she had to return a couple of steps since she was almost out.

"Saw Luna outside, she wanted us to say that if you need someone to do the commentary of the game she's available," older-Ron answered with a smile.

The red-haired woman grinned widely. "Maybe next time." And with that Older-Ginny left.

"Luna?" the younger Ginny asked.

"Aunt Luna is awesome. Weird, but awesome," said James while Hugo and Al nodded.

"I don't understand her most of the time," Hugo said.

"No one does," Al answered. "Lorcan and Lysander are funny, though."

Older-Hermione smiled at a confused Ginny, "She's an old friend you might know already," she said as Ginny nodded. "Luna Scamander, formerly Lovegood, is also Lily's godmother."

"She's even named Luna, Lily Luna Potter," James said, scoffing, and he earned a glare from his sister.

Harry didn't know this Luna but maybe he would meet her later; she seemed to be quite close to the family.

"This place is brilliant, mate!" Ron said then, walking to Harry. The older Ron and his wife had gone to their room to put some things in order.

Harry nodded with a smile. "So, how did it go for you two?"

"Err... Pretty cool actually, Hugo has a lot of Quidditch posters and shirts, I'm really prepared for that game now. Rose knows everything about Quidditch also, and I mean everything mate! Can you believe she's Hermione's daughter?"

Hermione coughed next to them, blushing. "What?" asked Ron, and Hermione moved her eyes to Hugo and then to Harry. "Wh-what?... oh yeah!... Harry, this is Hugo."

"Hi, Uncle Harry."

"Hey," Harry replied, smiling awkwardly, before the boy walked to where Ginny was and greeted her too.

"He's a nice boy," Hermione said, beaming. "This is Rose, by the way."

Her bushy-haired daughter said hello and went to where Hugo, Lily and Ginny were sitting. Ron went to the bedroom to put his bag there and Harry and Hermione followed; the girl insisted on Ron taking Hugo's bag too.

It was then that Harry paid more attention to Ron's green shirt, which had the surname _Keegan_ on the back, just above some big numbers 03. Surely the name of one of Ireland's Quidditch players.

Once at their room, Ron put his bag on the bed over Harry's and Hugo's on the other one.

"It was a nice place, our house I mean, maybe you could see it later," said Hermione to Harry; she was standing next to the door, smiling, with her cheeks a little pink.

"I would love to."

"Oh don't listen to her, I'm not really sure if she really saw anything besides her books... her older self's books mind you," Ron said, causing Hermione to frown at him. "Can you believe it? She has a library in there! It's a small room but even so... a library inside a house!"

"We have a library too," Harry added.

"Of course you do, but that thing is massive! I imagine that when they built it they found themselves with so many rooms that they didn't know what to put in them anymore."

"Ron!" Hermione complained with a frown.

Harry smirked, even with all the oddness it was nice to have a little private talk with his friends, at least for a moment.

"So how did it go for you?" Hermione asked him.

"Well we did get to know the house a little better, but you already saw a few places there. And, well, I found out more about my grandfather and the Potters; you know, older-me knows way more than I do about it."

Hermione and Ron were glad about that part, and they even suggested that it was a good way for Harry to get answers to many of his questions. However, Harry mentioned that their memories were going to be erased either way, and their faces lowered a bit.

Surprisingly though, Harry soon found himself thrilled by the idea of finding more about his past, even if he would forget all of it later. The Dursleys always hid things from him, and Dumbledore kept telling him only small parts at a time. Getting to know these things directly from his older self was a huge opportunity.

Harry said so to his friends, which improved everyone's mood. Then, he turned to Hermione. "You don't look so worried now."

Hermione gave him a weak smile. "She's probably right, you know, older-me, if they erase or memories then there shouldn't be any problem with affecting the past."

"Of course not, let's just enjoy the game and have fun at Hogwarts, it's not like they're going to grade us or anything."

Hermione glared at Ron. "Well, I would like to learn something."

"Oh, come on, Hermione! They're going to erase our memories either way. What's the point?" Hermione snorted and seemed ready to reply, when Ron appeared to remember something and turned to Harry. "Oh, you won't believe this Harry! Hugo said we are on the chocolate frog cards! The three of us! On the chocolate frog cards!"

Harry and Hermione were gobsmacked. "On the chocolate frog cards? Are you sure?" Harry asked, knowing those only pictured famous witches and witches. His only accomplishment was not dying as a baby, but if that was enough to put him in there he should have had one card by now.

Ron nodded very fast, "Positive. Hugo said he had the cards, but when I asked him to see them he kind of got nervous and said he had left them at George's."

That was weird, it made Harry remember the conversation his older self was having with Teddy in the morning, was something really going on besides the time travel? He turned to Hermione and noticed she was surprised too, "I didn't know that. They don't have a reason to hide those, I mean it's clearly obvious we are famous or something. You saw it Ron, everybody was waving and talking at us - well, them - on our way here."

"You too?" Harry asked, surprised, as Ron nodded, "They also did the same with my older self but I thought it was... common, you know the scar and that. Many people knew Ginny too, I imagined that was because of Quidditch."

"This is odd," Hermione said.

Ron made a gesture and smiled. "I don't know what it is, but in the mean time I'll eat as much chocolate frogs as I can. I want to find those cards! Don't tell your older self Hermione, but I sneaked two frogs out of the house."

"Ronald! You shouldn't... ugh, never mind," the girl said, blushing.

Harry laughed and right then Rose appeared. "Hey, why are you still here? Everybody is talking about the game," the bushy haired girl said at the door, then she turned to Hermione. "Mum, you haven't picked a bed yet."

Hermione blushed a bit. "Eh yeah, I'll be there soon."

Something came back to Harry, "Oh hey! You don't know Teddy yet, come on."

Ron and Hermione were really glad when they met Harry's godson, but what really surprised them was that everyone was talking loudly of Professor Lupin's condition and Sirius. It turned out that even James' second name was Sirius. The conversation was very joyful and after a while even Ginny looked comfortable with the kids. Truth to be told, Harry enjoyed them a lot too. James and Al happened to have pretty good stories to tell.

Everyone was in the living room chatting about the game, so Harry knew soon enough about the players and the previous matches - he decided to be on Ireland's side. Hugo and Teddy seemed to be the only two people who had brought blue scarves and blue hats.

"Hey, hey, hey! Where are the little people?" a familiar voice echoed in the tent, and when Harry turned he saw more blue hats. Three boys were standing near the entrance, two of them sporting Scotland's colours and the other one with a green scarf for Ireland. A man in blue was behind them and when he grinned, Harry got the immediate sensation that he was not meant to be old. It was George Weasley - or Fred - Harry wouldn't know.

"Told you they would be here already!" a boy with a blue hat said to the man - by his looks he had to be a son of one of the twins; however, he was also quite distinguishable for his dark skin.

"You surely did."

The other boy wearing blue was nothing alike, and yet, Harry somehow knew he was a Weasley too; his hair was shining like gold but in weird orange tones, and even though he had freckles, Harry imagined he was the boy all girls turned to look at. The last boy had black hair and black eyes, he was looking around the tent, gaping, as his green scarf sparkled.

"At least Leo has some sense," James said, approaching them; he put his hand over the shoulder of the black haired boy.

The redhead man walked to them. "Let me re-introduce myself, George Weasley. So what we got here?" He moved his eyes over them. "A small Harrykins and a little Gin-Gin," he said, looking at Harry and Ginny. "A smaller sister-in-law too... oh... and a little... well little-er Ickle-Ronniekins."

George grinned while both Rons snorted, the younger one looking quite red. Hermione's cheeks were coloured too.

It turned out that the dark skinned boy was Fred Weasley the second, son of George and Angelina Johnson. Harry found himself smiling at the news of his old Quidditch team partner being a Weasley now. The boy with the golden hair was Bill's youngest son Louis, but Harry didn't know his mother, apparently a French woman. The last boy was a Muggleborn boy called Leo Stevens, who was James's, Fred's and Louis' closest friend.

James wanted to leave the tent with the other three boys, but older-Hermione stopped him, saying that he had to wait for one of his parents to let them know first. The boy snorted. James introduced his friends to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny; then he took them to one side of the tent to talk about something.

When older-Harry returned, Rose was talking about a Scottish chaser named Bailey, who apparently was very good; but even so, the girl insisted on Ireland winning. It was pretty awkward seeing Ron arguing heatedly with her about Quidditch at one moment, and then blushing and looking away at the next one. It was easy to guess what Ron thought at those moments, after all Harry thought about Ginny too. Harry was happy that his friend hadn't brought his sister up yet, maybe his older self did talk to him about it.

After updating older-Ron on some Auror stuff, older-Harry spoke out loud, "So who wants to go to Grandpa's tent? I was just there on my way here and it seems like Weasleys are already gathering up."

Everyone agreed, of course.

Harry and Ginny put the Cloak on again as older-Hermione placed some charms on her younger self and Ron. It was weird seeing a redhead Hermione with short straight hair and a brown haired Ron, but they were pretty decent disguises. Outside, the light of the new day was starting to shine.

The way to the Weasley tent was equally packed with surprising things, and with the daylight they were easier to distinguish. Harry saw a few familiar faces, and way more children running around than when they first arrived. Still, the trip was short and they soon stopped in front of a different tent.

Mr. Weasley's tent was equally impressive. It was not that fancy and it had only one or two rooms in there, but the living room was much bigger and Harry understood why the moment he entered. It was made to hold a pack of redheads.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny were shocked at the image too. As soon as the people there saw them arrive, they exploded in yells and dragged the four of them to the living room, introducing them to new faces of Weasleys and familiar ones too.

The one who shocked them the most was Bill, his entire face was covered in scars that he didn't have when Harry first saw him a couple of days ago. Ginny even gasped, looking scared at that, but Bill smiled and told them not to worry. He said that those were just from some wild animal that had attacked him a while ago. The eldest Weasley brother was not living in Africa anymore and his wife, who was in the kitchen making some snacks with Mrs. Weasley, was completely stunning. Fleur Weasley.

Bill and Fleur had three children, but only Louis was there; his two sisters were out looking for some friends.

Angelina Weasley, previously Johnson, was there too. George and Angelina had a daughter who was named Roxanne, who was talking with two other redhead girls: Molly and Lucy, who were Percy's daughters. Neither Percy nor his wife Audrey were around.

"Percy is very high in the Magical Transportation Department now, he must be regulating the Portkey arrivals as we speak," Bill had said.

"Well, that's better than Cauldron bottoms," Ron replied, showing actual surprise, and a loud laugh erupted from all the older persons in the room.

Charlie didn't get married and had no kids. Still, it was soon clear that he was the cool uncle. Of course there was your regular cool uncle, and then there was your cool uncle who had all sort of dragon burns around his body and tons of dragon stories to tell; when they first arrived, he was saying something about a Chinese dragon to Roxanne, Molly and Lucy. Roxanne and Molly were smiling widely, while Lucy seemed to be halfway between surprise and fear.

One thing Harry found weird was the older Fred's absence; not only was he not in the tent, but apparently he hadn't come to the game at all. Everyone looked serious when they asked and they received only short answers. Hermione and Ron exchanged puzzled looks after that. What was so important that could make Fred miss a Quidditch World Cup?

Older-Harry left to check on Auror matters again, and Ron joined him this time. He said he'd wanted to greet some old friends, even though he hadn't been in the Auror business for years. Teddy joined them as well. The young man said good bye to everyone by name, except to Bill, who he called Mr. Weasley. That was soon answered by Fleur.

"Teddy is dating Victoire, our eldest daughter. He's a very nice young man," she said, and even when Bill snorted, Harry saw him smiling too. Fleur had a light French accent, but she spoke English pretty naturally.

Harry got another weird feeling then, as if there was something not entirely right. He turned to a small table near Mr. Weasley, and at that moment, he caught a glimpse of the Daily Prophet. There, with big bold letters, was the headline.

**POTTERS AND WEASLEYS ARRIVE FROM THE PAST**

There were some pictures of Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny down in the article, which seemed to have been taken a few years ago at some kind of event with a lot of people. The piece of paper got Harry's attention, but Mr. Weasley had noticed that. "Oh, nothing important, just the announcement of your arrival. After the game is over, everybody should know about you."

"Can I read it?" Harry asked.

Mr. Weasley exchanged a serious look with Bill and tried to smile naturally at him. "Maybe later, it doesn't say anything important, really... We should start eating breakfast now, so..."

Harry and Hermione exchanged confused looks, but before they could say anything, Al shouted, "Hey, he's here!" and Rose, who was talking with him, smiled too.

The most unexpected thing happened then, because when Harry turned to the entrance of the tent, he found himself staring at someone he didn't expect to see there at all. Standing with a wide smile in front of them was a younger Draco Malfoy.


	7. Not Gryffindor

**Thanks to PeridotPi for the help betaing this chap.**

* * *

It seemed like time stopped the moment Draco Malfoy appeared before the Weasley tent. It was unreal seeing him standing there so relaxed and smiling lightly. Harry got the weird feeling that something was wrong with the world just by looking at him there.

Harry's first reaction was to frown and stand up, ready for whatever could come out of Malfoy's mouth. So far, the Slytherin had done and said plenty of things to them at Hogwarts, and it was hard to believe he had dared to enter the tent like that. Whatever his reasons, Harry was not going to allow him to do anything to the Weasleys.

"Malfoy!" Harry yelled at once, but his shout was overshadowed by Ron's thundering voice.

"YOU?!" What are you doing here?!"

The redhead stood up too, seemingly prepared to kick Malfoy out of the place at any moment.

Surprised gasps and muted voices spread across the table. Hermione and Ginny looked especially shocked.

"I-I-..." Malfoy mumbled, losing his smile and taking a step back.

Ron started walking towards the boy at the entrance and, when he did so, most of the people there came out of their confusion. Harry heard plenty of yells.

"Ron! Don't!"

"Stop!"

"Dad, wait!"

Harry followed Ron from a distance, since he wasn't sure what Malfoy could do to his friend. However, only the redhead pulled out his wand. In no time Ron was facing the blond boy, just inches away from his face.

"Hugo? But no, it — you're older," said a very confused Malfoy, eyes shining in bewilderment.

"I'm here," said Hugo from the table, confusing the boy even more.

The whole situation was quite odd, but Ron didn't give it much thought. He only shook his head a bit before saying, "What's wrong with you?! What are you doing here?!" and pushing the blond boy away weakly.

Ron was probably about to throw a spell when Al rushed to him, trying to stop them. "No! Dad, Uncle Ron, wait!"

Harry fixed his look on his son's identical green eyes, confused. Al had grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him back, trying to keep him away from Malfoy. A second later, Rose rushed to Ron, putting herself between Malfoy and the younger version of her father. Both of the girl's hands were on Ron chest, trying to stop him too.

"Wh-what are you doing?" whined Ron, blushing a bit.

"Dad, stop, you can't do anything to him," said the bushy-haired girl as Al nodded, still holding Harry by the arm.

"WH-who — what? Let go of me, don't you know who that is?" Ron was pointing at the entrance, as Rose had already dragged him a certain distance away from the blond boy.

Rose and Al nodded. "Yes we know, he's our friend."

At once Harry's and Ron's eyes sprung open and they turned to look at each other. Harry knew his friend was just as lost as he was. "What? But he's..." Harry mumbled.

A couple of steps toward the entrance, Malfoy was moving his sight between the redhead girl and her young father. His grey eyes grew a bit. "M-Mr. Weasley?" he asked in a confused tone. Surprisingly, he appeared to be addressing Ron, which caught them all off guard. Harry and Ron turned to the blond boy, stunned.

Harry looked closer at Malfoy and he realized that he wasn't sure who the boy was anymore. Yes, he looked pretty much like Draco Malfoy, but he was acting quite different; Harry thought the boy was even scared. Some minor differences on his face also gave Harry the idea that he might just be another person, someone who happened to look like Draco Malfoy.

Confused, he turned to the table. Most of the people there were still trying to get over the surprise, but a few of them were frowning and telling them to come back. On the other hand, George and Fred looked amused while James was obviously trying to contain his laughter. Nearby, Louis Weasley was rolling his eyes.

"Ron, come back here!" yelled Mrs. Weasley but the redhead boy didn't move.

"I don't know what you're doing here, but you better get out in five seconds or I'll hex you to the floor!" yelled Ron once more, struggling behind Rose.

"Ronald Weasley, you won't do such a thing!" yelled older-Hermione, getting out of her chair; however, because of James' loud laughs and Bill and Charlie also standing up, the voice came as merely a whisper to them.

The boy who looked like Malfoy frowned too, "Hey! What's the problem? I just came here and—" But he didn't get to finish, because Ron pointed his wand at him and fired before Bill and Charlie could pull him away.

"Slugulus Eructo!" Ron yelled as his brothers reached him.

"Ron, wait!"

"Dad!" Rose yelled.

It was too late, of course. The next moment, the Malfoy look-alike was on the floor throwing his stomach out in the form of slimy slugs. Rose and Al rushed to him, Harry's son was soon raising the blond boy from the floor. It was weird seeing that spell work after last time's result.

"That should teach him!" said Ron frowning as Bill and Charlie placed him back on the table under Mrs. Weasley scandalized look.

"Oh, Merlin! Look what you've done!" whined older-Hermione as she walked past Ron and knelt before the blond boy, trying to help him out. Hermione was also frowning and muttering something about overreacting.

"You shouldn't have done that," whispered Bill.

"He's not who you think he is, son," added Mr. Weasley, somehow confirming Harry's doubts. Ron looked lost at these words.

At the table, almost everybody else was laughing. James' entire group of friends minus Louis erupted as soon as they saw the first slug, George was looking a little more controlled but not too much. He and the young Molly were laughing too. Roxanne and Angelina were trying to hold it back, but they couldn't stop smirking. Even Lily and Ginny found the whole thing amusing.

Mr. Weasley and Fleur went to help older-Hermione. After a quick glare shot to the laughing audience, Mrs. Weasley joined them. The noise lowered, but still James made some occasional whispers to George or Fred that ended up in a new wave of laughs.

Moments later, the blond boy had stopped throwing slugs out but he still looked a little pale. Older-Hermione helped him to a chair at the table, and even when Harry was still wary about him, he decided against making any comment. He was not going to be the only one still standing up either, so he returned to his place.

Al was moving a hand in front of the Malfoy-look-alike, as if to see if he could react to it; meanwhile, Rose was whispering things to the boy in a hurry. Mrs. Weasley had already put a glass of fresh juice before him.

"That was so uncalled for! What were you thinking?!" older-Hermione scolded Ron, who seemed willing to argue. However, every time he noticed who was talking to him, he just lowered his eyes with a light tone of red appearing on his ears. Harry didn't dare interrupt the woman.

The regular Hermione was frowning at Ron too, but she didn't say anything, and after a while the bushy-haired girl was curiously glancing at the blond boy. Harry was more confused than ever about the boy's identity, and why the people there seemed to know him.

The boy talked softly once he was able to. "Err... Mrs. Weasley, I didn't meant to — I-I just came by to ask about—" he mumbled to older-Hermione, looking a little pink. "M-my dad is a few tents away waiting—"

Hermione turned a light shade of pink at the way her older self was addressed, but her frown didn't disappear. She was avoiding looking at Ron and so was Rose. Ron's daughter was quite upset too. Harry thought he heard Hermione muttering something about how bad it was to hex someone before knowing who he was.

"All of this was a huge mistake. Truly, we are deeply sorry. He doesn't know what he's doing, we need to have a long conversation about manners later," older-Hermione said, glaring at Ron when saying the last part, startling him. She then moved her eyes back to the blond boy and her features softened. "You should stay for a moment, Scorpius, you need to gain some strength after that."

He nodded. Ron looked confused, but he was still giving him some murderous stares which the blond boy quickly returned.

Scorpius? So he was not really Draco. Harry started getting more anxious about the boy's real identity with each second that passed. Now that he thought about it, Harry realized that it would be almost impossible for the boy to be Draco. The Slytherin boy was Harry's age and he should be a grown-up man by now too. This boy could be related to him though, as he looked way too much like him.

"We are so sorry dear, he didn't know," said Mrs. Weasley. "Has your father read the Prophet today?"

The boy shrugged.

At that they proceeded to explain to Scorpius everything about the time travel and the presence of the younger versions at that time. The boy seemed surprised, but he understood the situation quickly. He looked fascinated as if he wanted to ask the time travelers something; however, after a few cautious looks at them, he decided not to.

Finally, after everybody saw their confused faces, older-Hermione cleared Harry's doubt.

"Okay, listen to me," started the bushy haired woman. Some of the Weasleys were looking uncomfortably away, as she was directing her words to the people from the past only. "This is Scorpius Malfoy, Draco's son."

Gasps came from Hermione and Ginny, but Harry only stared as if the woman had just told them that the boy was actually a centaur in disguise. Ron was surprised for a bit, and he opened his mouth, ready to throw another outburst, but older-Hermione didn't let him. "Stop, let me finish first. Scorpius is Al's and Rose's friend, I don't want any of you being rude to him. Not here and not at Hogwarts either."

Harry was paralyzed as his jaw dropped open. His son being friend with Draco's son? That seemed unbelievable. Harry couldn't find what to say or even what to think, all what he could do at the moment was turn to his black-haired son, trying to understand what was going on. Al was next to Scorpius, still worried about the pale boy, but he only gave Harry a weak smile as an answer.

"Rubbish! My-my — well, she, Rose — she can't be friends with that git's son," said Ron, trying not to look into older-Hermione's eyes.

"Of course I can!" yelled Rose, quite red. She was obviously very mad.

Ginny was still surprised, but it was Hermione who looked more taken aback. Like Ron, she appeared to be having a hard time trying to believe the whole thing. Harry could see the thoughts racing through her head.

"They are not asking for your approval," continued a frowning older-Hermione. "It is up to them to decide who they befriend and who they do not. Scorpius is a nice boy, your older-self knows that too."

"Yeah, right," said James with his best ironic voice, but he sobered after a deathly glare from his aunt.

Ron paled and Harry imagined that he was feeling pretty much like him. How could their children have a strong relationship with Draco's son after all that had happened? After all what have been said and done? It made the whole future they were experiencing feel far less real.

Older-Hermione must have noticed their faces, since she continued looking at Harry and Ginny. "You two are perfectly fine with this also, your older-selves. Whatever happened with Draco's father in the past is no reason to forbid our children from getting to know Scorpius, or to blame him for something he didn't do. They all have known each other since first year and we couldn't be happier with their friendship."

The Weasleys were quiet, but they seemed to agree with most of what older-Hermione had said. Mrs. Weasley even put another glass of pumpkin juice in front of Scorpius, at which the boy thanked her kindly.

It really seemed out of this world to see a Malfoy thanking and smiling like that.

Harry didn't want to be unfair to a boy who wasn't to blame for his father's actions, and he knew what it felt to be treated like that by Snape; still, he found it really hard not to frown whenever his green eyes landed on the boy. Ron on the other hand, crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, clearly upset.

It turned out that Scorpius Malfoy only came to ask Rose and Al to go and take a look around after lunch; they nodded eagerly, saying they would ask their parents about it. Scorpius said his goodbyes once he looked better, but he only got a cold answer from Harry and a snort from Ron. Hermione and Ginny were still looking conflicted.

Before Scorpius walked away, older-Hermione practically forced Ron to apologize, which the redhead did grudgingly. Once the boy left, older-Hermione talked softly to them and explained why it was not right to be rude to the boy. According to her, Scorpius Malfoy was a pretty decent and polite boy, which sounded somehow weird on Harry's ears.

After a few moments, older-Harry, older-Ron and Teddy returned.

"Hey why the long faces?" asked the redhead man right away, "Someone from Ireland got injured, right? Knowing my luck..."

"No, but Scorpius came by."

"Oh right, him," said older-Ron and Harry knew his tone was slightly annoyed too. "What did he want?"

Before Harry knew it, Rose and Al were next to their parents, asking to go out after lunch to take a look around. Harry could understand the fuss. The other tents and the people out there were incredible and mesmerizing, he would have wanted to go out himself if they weren't trying to keep them covered for now. Still, he was feeling weird towards the whole Malfoy thing. He didn't know the boy at all, but he didn't trust him.

Older-Ron seemed to be having greater issues with allowing them to take a look, but after a while he was convinced between his wife's scolds and Teddy promising to join them.

"He did what?!" older-Ron asked, smirking, once they were sitting. They had just told him all about the slug incident.

"It is not something to laugh about!" his wife reprimanded.

"Aren't you hearing this? 'Course it is!" shouted older-Ron, getting a nasty glare from both his daughter and wife. He finally raised his hands in defeat, but the smile didn't abandon his face. Harry even saw him winking at his younger self when Rose and older-Hermione were not looking.

Harry turned to his older self, and couldn't make out what the man was thinking. He didn't seem to support Ron, but he was not scolding him either. After a while, he spoke slowly, making them understand that it was better not to get into a fight with Malfoy's son. The man insisted that Draco was a different person now, which Harry hardly believed.

"I still can't understand how they're friends," said Harry after a while, and when he saw a few eyes on him, he added quickly, "I don't have anything against it, but — is Malfoy's son in Gryffindor?"

It seemed odd to say it, but the alternative was way too unreal to even think about. Silence took place at the Weasley table, and a few nervous looks were exchanged.

"He would wish!" whined James.

"James..." Al looked at his brother in a warning tone, but the older Potter brother only rolled his eyes.

"Well, they met at Hogwarts, but Scorpius Malfoy is not in Gryffindor," said older-Harry.

"Then?" asked Ron.

"Scor is in Slytherin, and I am too," said Al weakly. He was looking at Harry with an expression Harry instantly recognized as fear. Harry shrank back and took his eyes off of Al's, feeling an odd sense of guilt.

He was also stunned, unable to believe it. A Potter in Slytherin; his son. The hat did try to put him in Slytherin, but that was because of Voldemort, wasn't it? He couldn't pass that on to his children, right?

A few seats away, Ginny gasped and stared at her son with wide eyes. Most of the Weasleys were looking odd, suddenly interested in their plates. Weasleys came from a long line of Gryffindors too.

"What?! Rubbish! He's Harry's son!" yelled Ron, and he received Hermione's elbow in his side. "Ouch! What was that for?!"

"You should know. Listen to them first," Hermione said, turning away from him. "You shouldn't have done that to Scorpius either."

"Well, I didn't know! I apologized already!"

"As if you meant it..."

It seemed like Ron and Hermione were right on their way to their first row since they had arrived in the future when George Weasley spoke. "Well, well, what do we have here? Trouble in paradise?"

Ron and Hermione looked away from each other, each of them blushing. Harry saw older-Hermione and older-Ron looking at them, and then at each other. Finally, a sad smile appeared in both of his friends' older versions.

"Hey, hey, relax. It's not a big deal," said older-Ron. "It's shocking, I know, but even so there's no need to react like that. Al here is a nice boy, he would be nicer if he was in Gryffindor, but that's not his fault..."

"Ron!" yelled older-Hermione.

"Sorry, well you know what I meant," added older-Ron, looking at Al, who smiled. Most of the people there were smiling now.

Older-Hermione let out a heavy sigh and turned to Ron, "We are going to forget this, ok? You didn't know any of it. Even so, you all need to be more thoughtful, we don't want you to get into trouble. Things are not the same as when you left, Slytherin has his fair share of good people now. There was even a Muggleborn there a few years ago."

Harry was surprised by that. A Muggleborn in Slytherin? It was like everything that the Slytherins hated right there. Harry decided he couldn't judge Slytherin without going to Hogwarts first; he was not convinced, but he was going to give it a try, for Al. Harry smiled at his black-haired son, at which the boy smiled back. He did seem like a nice person.

Ron and Hermione soon made peace, pushed a bit by their older selves, and even Rose looked a bit less upset after some words from her mother.

"Is it better for them to be mad or not? They shouldn't be snogging each other either, you know, affecting time and that," started Fred, looking at Ron and Hermione.

"Well they could, my son, they are going to erase their memories, remember?"

Loud laughs echoed and more awkward moments came for both Rons and both Hermiones. More Weasleys started filling the tent as time passed and soon Mrs. Weasley and Bill's wife decided that it was time to put food on the table. The mood lightened a lot and Harry even got the impression that Ron and Hermione were not that mad anymore.

It turned out that Al was not the only one who was not in Gryffindor. Rose was a Ravenclaw and she was friend of Scorpius mostly because of Al and the fact that they were in the same year. Harry noticed Ron was struggling between being upset for her not being in Gryffindor and being happy because she was not in Slytherin. The redhead crossed his fingers wishing that at least Hugo would end up being sorted into Gryffindor. He and Lily were about to start Hogwarts in a few days so they didn't have a house yet.

Harry also discovered that not being in Gryffindor was not something that only happened to Rose and Al. A few of the other Weasleys actually ended up in Ravenclaw too. Most importantly, Victoire, which meant that the first Weasley grandkid was not a Gryffindor either. Dominique, Victoire's sister, and Lucy — who was Percy's daughter — were in Ravenclaw too.

Older-Ginny, Percy and his wife arrived halfway through breakfast. All of the Weasley grandchildren were back by then, which meant that introductions made Harry forget a bit about Malfoy and the houses. The table was packed and loud conversations flooded all around, mostly about the Quidditch World Cup. Most of the Weasleys were with Ireland, but there were enough Scotland supporters to make a heated conversation. It was surprising seeing so many people with so many things in common, and at the same time so different. Victoire Weasley seemed like she'd been taken out of a magazine, while Molly Weasley was more cheerful and funny. It was an odd group, but Harry liked it a lot. It felt like a family.

One thing they all noticed was Percy's behavior. It was nothing like the old pompous prefect that they knew. Percy Weasley even joked once in a while, which was something that Ron couldn't believe.

Harry was glad to see Ginny smiling and laughing again too. He still didn't know how things happened between them, but it was best if all of them relaxed for now. He would have time to find about that later. Nevertheless, he kept throwing glances to Ginny a few times during the meal, trying to understand.

During breakfast the plans for the day were discussed, but a huge part of the conversation was also centered around the time travelers and the fact they were going to attend Hogwarts. Most of the kids were excited about having them around, but Harry couldn't stop feeling a little weird about it; they were their children, nephews and nieces after all.

"So, they're going to be in our year?" asked Lucy Weasley, turning to Roxanne.

"Yes they are, at least those three," said older-Harry, looking at Harry, Ron and Hermione. "Ginny is going to be with Al and Rose."

"Wicked."

"They are not going to be in your house though," said Molly to Lucy, her sister.

"Not a problem, I'll show them around then," added Roxanne.

Everyone continued talking about the matter happily, except Ginny, who looked a little sad after discovering she was going to be alone. Rose and Al were not in Gryffindor.

"Don't worry, we'll be there too. We'll talk to you every day," assured Hermione, and the redhead girl smiled.

"She will not be alone at all, Gryffindor is stuffed with Weasleys," added older-Ginny, smiling widely.

Soon, Ron and Harry started talking about Quidditch again; Roxanne, Hugo and a lot of other people joined their conversation; even Ginny, who was slowly starting to talk more freely in the new state of things, spoke. Hermione on the other hand, was immersed in some chat with Percy, Audrey, Bill and her older self.

When breakfast was over, older-Ginny rushed away once more, saying she still had plenty of things to do. James managed to get permission from his parents to walk around the tents, as long as it was not too far away.

"So your sister is staying with the Byrnes?" James asked Leo on their way out.

Louis and Fred rolled their eyes.

"Can you stop asking about her? It's weird," said Leo Stevens. They left, and Harry didn't hear anything more.

Older-Harry left too. Teddy was next, but this time he didn't follow him; instead he was planning on taking a walk around with Victoire, his girlfriend.

More Weasleys kept going in and out of the tent throughout the morning. It was like a reunion center. Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny ended up spending a great deal of time with their remaining children. They did get to know them better.

Harry was becoming more and more convinced that Al was a very nice boy — much more thoughtful than his brother, but just as joyful. It still felt odd since at times he couldn't stop taking out of his head the fact that he was in Slytherin. He was trying to see all of his similarities to the Slytherin students he knew back at Hogwarts. So far he had found none.

He also discovered Hugo was an interesting challenge for Ron in wizarding chess, even at his young age, something that the redhead already knew from the previous day. Lily was paying attention to the match as she played some exploding snaps with Al. Harry, Hermione, Ginny and Rose were next to them on a couch.

"Wonder where we'll be sorted," said Lily without taking her eyes away from the game. She was resting over her stomach and had her head supported on her hands. "I want to be in Gryffindor like Mum and Dad, but I don't know."

Harry had to suppress the urge to tell her that she would surely end up there, because Al was looking at him. "The house you end up in will be lucky to have you."

Lily beamed.

"All I want is to not be left alone," added Hugo. "As long as I'm with Lily or Dalia or the twins I'll be fine."

"Who's Dalia? Or the twins?" Ginny asked.

"Dalia is Uncle Neville's daughter and the twins are Aunt Lunas' children," said Rose.

Harry had heard about Luna already, but it was a pleasant surprise to hear that they were Neville's friends. Their fellow partner was a little clumsy, but he was a nice person.

"Oh, and they are going to be sorted this year too?" asked Harry.

"Yeah, if we are lucky we will end up all in the same house." said Hugo, "It would be nice to have somebody to talk to since the first day."

Hermione smiled at her son. "I'm sure you would make friends soon, even if you're not."

"Sure thing, just try to keep it between Gryffindor or Ravenclaw," added Ron, moving a knight on the board.

"Ron!"

"Ok, ok... it doesn't matter which house you go to," said the redhead. Harry was not sure if he meant those last words.

Lily and Al invited Harry and Ginny to play with them after a while, which they did gladly. Rose grabbed another set of wizarding chess and asked her mother to join her too. It was kind of weird being there like that, but it was nice. They even played in teams and, naturally, Al and Lily made Harry team up with Ginny. It was not long before Harry started hearing some arguments at his side. Hermione was playing against Hugo and Ron was advising her. Even with the discussion it was obvious that their argument from the morning was long forgotten.

At that moment, as he laughed with all of them, Harry felt more like part of a family than ever before.

Lunch came quickly and the whole Weasley pack gathered again. Even James' group came back with an ongoing argument between Fred and James about the Scotland defense. Lunch was way more cheerful than breakfast, since it appeared as if the morning events never happened.

When Scorpius Malfoy came by, Ron tensed again, but he didn't do anything more than glare and snort at the boy. Rose grabbed her Ireland hat and left with Al and Scorpius, smiling. Teddy and Victoire joined them joyfully.

"What kind of name is Scorpius anyway? He is like his git of a father, I bet he is," Harry heard Ron mutter quietly.

They were having such a great time that Harry almost didn't think about the conversation from the morning between his older self and Teddy. It was not important at the moment. Ron did mention something about the Chocolate Frog Cards again, but he soon dropped it when Hugo started sharing more details with him about the imminent Quidditch match.

As the time for the game approached, the conversations became more and more excited. Roxanne was practically shaking on her seat, unable to believe she was going to see the Quidditch final.

"What if we are all over-excited and someone catches the snitch in the first couple of minutes? The game would be over before we even start with our snacks!" suggested Louis in the living room.

Roxanne frowned and threw the first pillow at him, as everybody around booed Louis.

More pillows flew at him, and everyone was laughing, even Louis himself. The boy with the red-golden hair dodged Roxanne's pillow, but he was not that lucky with the next ones. "What? It is a possibility."

"Oh, shut up or you'll jinx it!" Molly complained as Leo nodded next to her.

Charlie turned to his older brother. "If that happens, I'll stop talking to your son."

"I'll second that," added older-Ron.

Bill shrugged, laughing; his scars looked weird when he did so. "I hope it doesn't, I have some galleons in it being at least an hour-long game."

George and Angelina took their children out to their own tent and Ron turned to Hugo. "Is he usually right? Louis?" he whispered nervously.

"Sometimes, but not about Quidditch, don't worry. He's usually wrong about sports," said the redhead boy.

"He'd better be."

Rose and Al came back practically at the same time as older-Harry. Harry's older self said that it was time to get back to their tent and get ready. Older-Ginny was going to meet them at the stadium.

"Guess it's time, mate," said Ron to Harry. "Can you believe it!? A Quidditch World Cup!"

Harry smiled.

"We don't have hats like Rose or even banners," said Ginny sadly.

Older-Harry, who was close by, turned to her. "Don't worry, we'll get you some," he said, and the redhead girl blushed a bit. Lily beamed and started asking for some stuff too.

"I have plenty in my backpack also, I've been preparing myself," added Al with a grin.

"Brilliant!" said Harry.

They said their goodbyes and Harry saw Rose putting her green hat on Hermione, trying to get her as excited about the game as she was. Hermione smiled, with her cheeks a little red. Older-Hermione saw that and she smiled warmly too.

As they left the Weasley tent, Harry had to admit that he was quite eager himself. Even with all what they discovered today, it had turned out to be an amazing day. Harry was very happy and excited about going to Hogwarts too, but at the moment most of his thoughts were about the game and his new family. It was one of the best moments of his life.

He only wished Sirius could be there. He needed to write to him soon.

* * *

**Next Chapter: Skybox Number 5**


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